MIDLANDS-NORTH WEST (EUROPE)
The Midlands-North West constituency was contested by 17 candidates in 2019 with four seats up for grabs.
The traditional parties were all represented - Mairead McGuinness and Maria Walsh represented Fine Gael, Brendan Smith and Anne Rabbitte represented Fianna Fail and Matt Carthy represented Sinn Fein.
There was seven Independent candidates - Luke ‘Ming' Flanagan, Peter Casey, Fidelma Healy Eames, Olive O'Connor, Dilip Mahapatra, James Miller and Diarmuid Mulcahy.
The rest of the ballot was made up by Saoirse McHugh (Green), Dominic Hannigan (Labour), Cyril Brennan (Solidarity-PBP), Michael O'Dowd (Renua) and Patrick Greene (Direct Democracy).
Mulcahy, Miller, Greene, Mahapatra and O'Connor were all out by count five.
Mairead McGuinness meanwhile was elected after the first count with an impressive 134,630 votes.
O'Dowd, Brennan,Hannigan and Healy-Eames then all fell in successive counts.
In a blow to the party, Fianna Fail's two candidates - Rabbitte and Smith - were the next to be eliminated.
Saoirse McHugh was the next to go, leaving a four-way tie for three seats.
Luke ‘Ming' Flanagan, Matt Carthy and Maria Walsh were all successful on the 13th count, meaning Peter Casey missed out on a seat.
There will be an extra seat up for grabs in this constituency when June's European Elections roll by.
Due to the United Kingdom's ‘decision' to leave the European Union, that nation's seats have been redistributed with North West-Midlands benefiting by having its four seats increased to five.
Also expanding is the constituency itself – although the North West counties will be outnumbered by its Midlands counterparts with the counties of Laois and Offaly now being moved within the seat's boundaries.
Sinn Féin have announced a positive step by declaring that they'll be running two candidates as opposed to the one they ran last time in 2019.
Current incumbent, Chris MacManus – who was co-opted into the seat in 2020 following Matt Carthy's election to the Dáil as a TD – will be standing for election.
The party's second candidate will be Michelle Gildernew who is a major political figure in the North as she is currently the MP for the Westminster seat of Fermanagh & South Tyrone and has also served the area as an MLA in the NI Assembly at Stormont where she was the Minister for Agriculture.
Another former Minister of Agriculture will be standing. Fianna Fáil's Barry Cowen – who briefly served in the office – will be the party's candidate where it is hoped that the Offaly TD can take advantage of his county being included in the constituency to take a seat that they've not held since losing it in 2014.
Fine Gael have yet to formally announce their candidates, although current MEP Maria Walsh told The Business Post last year that she intended to stand for election.
However, Walsh's fellow Fine Gael MEP for this seat, Mairead McGuinness – who was elected on the first count five years ago – will not be standing.
The current EU Commissioner for Financial Services has one year of her office left to run and will focus her energies on that.
Independent MEP, Luke ‘Ming' Flanagan has yet to confirm if he'll be standing again.
Labour have yet to confirm their candidate for the constituency.
Others who have officially declared their candidacy are Brian O'Boyle (People Before ProfitSolidarity), Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) and far-right duo, Herman Kelly (Irish Freedom Party) and James Reynolds (National Party).