Cynthia Ní Mhurchú is a former journalist and presenter, working for organisations such as RTÉ, Raidió na Gaeltachta, The Sunday Independent and The Sunday Tribune. She has been working as a barrister for 27 years, specialising primarily in family law.

The most important issue is ensuring that regional and rural parts of Europe, including Ireland South, are not left behind economically and socially. I would like to see a massive EU wide investment programme in regional infrastructure across Europe but in particular in Ireland South. That means investing in our regional airports (Waterford, Kerry, Shannon, Cork) so that rural Ireland is connected and can focus on driving tourism but also encouraging more companies to locate in rural Ireland. That means tapping under utilised EU funds, such as the CEF fund, to invest in our ports (Rosslare, Foynes, Cork, etc) so that they are capable of servicing off shore wind farms that support thousands of green jobs and provide clean energy. That means using Horizon Europe funding to invest in our rural Technological Universities such as SETU and MTU. That will help us develop regional innovation clusters that will attract companies to set up there, creating jobs and driving economic growth into rural areas.

The ALDE party (Renew). Amongst their priorities are a focus on renewable and clean energy, a sustainable agricultural system that guarantees food production but safeguards biodiversity and a migration system that is fair but that works for EU citizens.

I am a problem-solver and have been working on solving peoples problems for years. Whether that is in court, or in media or as a teacher. I will bang the table in Brussels to ensure that rural Ireland and Ireland South get their fair share of funding. That means funding for our regional airport before the funding exemption expires in 2027. That means CEF funding for ports like Foynes and Cork and rural road safety funding for our accident black-spots. I will work tirelessly to ensure all new measures coming from Europe do not cripple farmers and small business and wrap them up in red tape. We need environmental measures and farmers understand this but they must be proportionate and farmers and small business must be compensated when their livelihood is impacted. I will work to introduce new measures that protect our children from harmful, sexual and violent content online. I will work to improve the Digital Services act to include a robust system of Age Verification for social media accounts. We cannot allow our children to continue to be exposed to harmful and damaging content online.