Updated 3.47pm

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT met for the first time since May’s elections with Ireland’s 11 MEPs taking their seats in Strasbourg this morning.

The first day saw the newbies taking part in the vote for the new president of the European Parliament with Martin Schutlz winning with 409 votes.

The make-up of the Irish contingent on the continent has changed dramatically with Labour losing all its MEPs and Sinn Féin returning three in the Republic.

When you include Northern Ireland’s Martina Anderson that makes four and means that a selfie becomes all the more difficult.

But they pulled it off:

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Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy is only buzzing:

Fine Gael returned four MEPs including the newly-elected Deirdre Clune in Ireland South and Brian Hayes in Dublin.

Both were all smiles as they arrived in the French city this morning:

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For Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly it’s familiar territory having retained the seat he first won in 2009:

He knows what he’s doing and he knows what he needs:

Meanwhile Nessa Childers was the surprise package in Dublin where she took one of the three seats in the capital, edging out Eamon Ryan.

She retained an MEP seat she first won as a Labour candidate in 2009 so this is all familiar to her too. But the independent still seemed pretty excited about this:

This is also familiar territory for independent Marian Harkin who won a third term in May and was taking note of some “wise words” this morning:

Finally, Luke Ming Flanagan told his Facebook followers he voted for Dimitris Papadimoulis for one of the vice presidents positions in the Parliament. He also explained why he only arrived after Martin Schulz was already elected:

In case you can’t read it, here’s what he had to say:

Earlier Martin Schulz a German Socialist was elected to the position of President. Unfortunately due to my wife, who is pregnant, becoming ill on Sunday it was only possible for me to get here after the vote. Happy to report that my wife is now in much better form and the baby(in the womb) too!

First published 12.49pm

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