Ireland's new MEPs are preparing to take up their seats in the European Parliament, while those who weren't so lucky are recovering from the bruising. The dust has settled after the elections. It's a time when European unity and priorities are in the spotlight, so what can we extrapolate from the results of the election? How will Ireland make its mark? What will the parliament's main aims be? And just how important was this election for the bloc?

Political Editor Christina Finn is joined on this episode of The Candidate podcast by Theresa Reidy, political scientist at University College Cork; Barry Colfer, director of research at the Institute of International and European Affairs; and Muiris O'Cearbhaill, reporter with The Journal.

This episode was presented by Christina Finn and produced by Nicky Ryan and Sinéad O'Carroll.

This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.