Three months into their new jobs, the new kids on the block at the European Parliament talk to Deaglán de Bréadún.
Time was when the European Parliament was widely viewed in Ireland as a retirement home for clapped-out members of the Dáil or other politicians whose best days were behind them. With successive elections that image has changed. There is a new breed of MEP representing Ireland, generally young, dynamic, hungry and looking to a bright political future.
But an MEP's life can be a tough one. Every working week, they are away from home for several days. Three weeks out of four, they are in Brussels, and the other is spent in Strasbourg, where most of the full or plenary sessions take place.
It's also fun.
"I'm enjoying it," said Fianna Fáil's Eoin Ryan in Strasbourg this week. "You would have to be in awe of the place to a certain extent."
Ryan has been a TD for six years and a junior minister for three, but finds the European Parliament quite different from Dáil Éireann.
For one thing, there's no such thing as government and opposition. MEPs exert influence through the various committees as well as through groups of like-minded colleagues from different member-states. The nearest equivalent to a cabinet is the European Commission but there is also the Council of Ministers, where a member of each MEP's country's government will always be sitting.
Ryan was excited about being attached to two committees, Economic and Monetary Affairs, and Development. Like other "freshers" at Strasbourg he stresses the need to focus on a couple of issues and "get stuck into them".
Development issues are a subject close to his heart, although some countries, particularly among the newer member-states, have "absolutely no interest" in the topic. There are other issues that come an MEP's way, with the bounce of the ball, and Ryan has just been assigned to prepare a report on the European film industry.
Fine Gael's Mairead McGuinness used to be an agricultural journalist in newspapers and on television and now finds herself on the European Parliament's agriculture committee. She's in Strasbourg for four days during the plenary session, and during the other three weeks she spends two to three days in Brussels, where the bulk of the Parliament's work gets done. She was elected in the East constituency (formerly Leinster) and, like her colleagues, expresses a determination to remain in touch with voters through constituency work.
In her days as a journalist, she made regular visits to the European institutions but recalls that there was always someone to escort her through the Brussels or Strasbourg labyrinths and, since she was with a group anyway, it was easy to get her bearings. As an MEP there is no such guidance but, ironically, she believes that criss-crossing the country for the Ear to the Ground farming programme on RTÉ was good preparation. At any particular time, she was liable to find herself in a farmyard in the middle of nowhere and just had to make her own way. Now she strides through the corridors of the European Parliament with a degree of confidence but, as in the old days, remembers to wear comfortable shoes.
Like most people, Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald finds the parliament's architecture "difficult to navigate", but this is made up for by the "very warm reception" she says she has been getting from other MEPs. She is mildly surprised at how important it is to have French - she speaks fluent Spanish but only "school French", while her party colleague from North of the Border, Bairbre de Brún, has fluent French and German. McDonald plans to achieve fluency in French by taking the language classes provided for MEPs. Having good French "makes the wheels of this bureaucracy move more smoothly".
MARIAN HARKIN, WHO was elected on an Independent ticket in the North West constituency, is looking forward to the next five years as an MEP.
"It's new, it's different, it's exciting," she says. The travel poses a challenge: she has to make her way from Sligo to Dublin for flights out, there are no direct flights to Strasbourg from Dublin, and if there are any from London or Brussels, the MEPs don't seem to know about them.
The main routes they take are: a flight to Paris followed by train or plane to Strasbourg; a flight to Frankfurt followed by bus or train to Strasbourg; or a flight to Brussels and a five-hour train journey onward.
But McDonald is taking it in her stride. On her way back from Strasbourg this week, she was planning to hold constituency "clinics" in Monaghan and Cavan.
Meanwhile, Harkin is pleased be on the Regional Development Committee of the parliament. It's a major interest of hers and she has always got "a better hearing" in Europe than in Dublin on regional issues.
Kathy Sinnott is another high-profile Independent, representing the South (formerly Munster) constituency and her main interests are health and environment issues.
She is also concerned about the new Constitutional Treaty. She favours "a co-operative but not controlling Europe" and doesn't want the relationship between Ireland and Europe to be the same as between Illinois, where she grew up, and Washington DC. But she says she rejects the eurosceptic approach represented by the UK Independence Party (UKIP), whose best-known MEP, broadcaster Robert Kilroy-Silk, was also in Strasbourg this week.
Sinnott has to make her way from Cork to Dublin to begin the journey to Strasbourg. Returning home, she arrives at midnight "when the children are asleep".
BEING AWAY FROM their families is a concern to Irish MEPs generally, although women members expressed some resentment that, during the election campaign, they were regularly asked "who will be minding the children while you're away?", whereas the same question was never put to male candidates.
Gay Mitchell, of Fine Gael, says he "finds the travel very difficult, particularly to Strasbourg". As a long-time Dáil representative for Dublin South-Central and one-time minister of state for European affairs, he is accustomed to demands on his time, but the father of four comments that "busy as I was in politics, most nights I got home". He believes the Strasbourg operation should be closed down and all meetings held in Brussels.
"It takes from the seriousness of the Parliament," he says.
He adds that the only reason it continues this way is to keep this part of France economically viable: "It puts the Shannon stopover to shame."
Another former minister of state, Liam Aylward, of Fianna Fáil, says the European Parliament is "a big change from Leinster House" because there is much greater emphasis on committee work as a means of influencing legislation. But people ignore the institution at their peril.
"The European Parliament now has an equal say on EU legislation in over 50 different areas," he says.
Unlike most of the MEPs, Fine Gael's Simon Coveney doesn't have a spouse and children back home. He's very upbeat about the parliament and finds it "fascinating" to work with people from so many different countries and diverse backgrounds.
His target is to "make an impact" on this huge stage and "gain credibility" as a specialist in areas such as foreign affairs and development.
"One of my real concerns was that it would be a talking shop," he says. "I have not found that to be the case."
Deaglán de Bréadún is the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times