European Diary: Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney's decision last week to stand in the next Dáil election was widely anticipated in both Dublin and Brussels, where he sits as an MEP.
"As with many things in life, this decision has come down to a judgment of priorities," said Coveney, when announcing his decision. "I believe the tide is turning for my party, and that people are now looking to us for leadership and inspiration in putting together a better alternative government."
The lure of a front bench job in a Fine Gael-led government after the next election was always likely to attract a young ambitious politician with a safe seat in the Dáil. But if, as expected, he retains his Dáil seat, he will be forced to stand down from his seat in the European Parliament in 2007 due to the end of the "dual mandate" rule.
Under the current rules and procedures of the European Parliament, Irish and British MEPs are allowed to sit in their national parliaments as well, drawing down salaries and expenses from both institutions.
However, due to a series of reforms agreed by member states and the EU institutions in 2002, this form of "double jobbing" has to stop in Ireland after the next general election and in Britain by 2009 at the latest.
Coveney is just one of several Irish MEPs likely to have to stand down from the European Parliament following the next general election. Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou MacDonald has already declared her intention to fight the next general election and most people expect Fine Gael MEPs Gay Mitchell and Maireád McGuinness to also battle it out on the national stage to help Fine Gael in its quest to win power.
Independent MEPs Marian Harkin and Kathy Sinnott may also throw their hats into the ring for the next Dáil election, which is likely to take place in the spring of 2007.
If all these candidates were successful it is possible that six out of Ireland's 13 sitting MEPs would have to stand down from the European Parliament before the end of their full five year term - hardly a national vote of confidence in the EU institution.
The end of the dual mandate in 2007 rather than at the time of the last European elections in 2004 will also lead to a messy and unsatisfactory situation from a democratic point of view. There will no byelections to replace MEPs in Europe who are elected to the Dáil in the next election.
Instead, a substitute MEP, chosen by the party convention before the 2004 elections, will automatically assume the position in the European Parliament. In Mr Coveney's case that means Fine Gael's substitute candidate, Colm Burke, the former lord mayor of Cork, will inherit the vacant MEP position.
Mary Lou MacDonald's replacement in Brussels, if she wins a Dáil seat, would either be Sinn Féin councillor Killian Forde of Donaghmede or Sinn Féin's former general secretary Robbie Smyth.
There are also practical problems associated with sending someone to Brussels for the remaining two years of a five-year term as an MEP. Just finding your way around the labyrinth of the two parliament buildings in Strasbourg and Brussels is a logistical challenge. And getting to grips with the committee system and the international issues debated in Brussels will also take a while for anyone to get used to. It will be a tough task for any new MEP to make an impact with just two years in the job.
There will also be a question mark over the commitment to Europe of those "double jobbing" MEPs seeking election to the Dáil in next year's election. MEPs spend one week a month at the parliamentary plenary session in Strasbourg and the remaining three weeks are spent in committees and undertaking constituency work.
Playing an active role at the European Parliament will be difficult during a general election campaign in Ireland.
Ironically, the likely flight of Irish MEPs from Brussels next year will take place at a time when the parliament has never enjoyed so much power and influence.
It has recently steered several major pieces of European legislation through the EU political process, including the services directive, the data retention directive and the Reach directive on unsafe chemicals. It also forced commission president José Manuel Barroso to reshuffle his college of commissioners in late 2004 over his appointment of the Italian Rocco Buttiglione as commissioner for justice and security.
"Let no one ever say that the European Parliament is a toothless tiger," said EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson recently in a speech outlining its new-found influence. But clearly in the Republic the lure of national politics continues to outshine the rise of the EU's only directly elected representative body.