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The Irish government is the first casualty of the eurozone crisis. Talks continue, but it is almost certain that parliament will be dissolved and next month the Irish will be heading for the polls.

The bail-out by the European Union and International Monetary Fund will dominate the campaign. It has been - and continues to be - the gravest crisis for the Republic of Ireland since it became an independent nation.

For the first time since Dublin was muscled by the European Central Bank into accepting an 85bn-euro (Β£72bn; $116bn) bail-out the voters will have their say.

Voters never get a perfect choice. They may like none of the parties, nor any of the leaders. They may want to punish the government, but the largest opposition party also supported giving blanket guarantees to the creditors of Ireland's banks. They may hate austerity but may fear the alternative.

But an election campaign, at its best, can spark a great national debate - with the rest of Europe at the ringside.

Some of the questions will be specific to Ireland, but some will resonate across Europe.

It will surely be debated whether Ireland is paying a fair rate for . The rate is around 5.8%. Sure that's less than what the markets were offering, but some regard it as punitive. And crucially, are the rates so stiff that it will prevent the country growing itself back to economic health?

Should the basic terms of the bail-out package be renegotiated? That may well turn out to be the key platform of the opposition and if they have the voters behind them it will strengthen their hand with Brussels.

What do the people feel about the blanket guarantee given to the creditors of Ireland's banks? Should the bondholders who leant to the banks have taken some of the losses? Was it right that the debt of the banks was taken onto the government's books and so became the responsibility of the taxpayer?

Will the voters demand that, even at this late hour, investors take a hit?

Austerity will never be popular, but the election will give some indication of how much pain people are prepared to take. Ireland embraced austerity early in order to try and stave off a bail-out. It was heralded as the poster-boy for austerity. In the end it wasn't enough, because of the losses in its banks.

The Germans, in particular, wanted the terms of the bail-out to be tough to dissuade others.

A new finance bill is about to be passed as a condition for getting the funds under the bail-out. There will be further savings and further cuts. Will the voters accept this as a painful necessity or will they indicate there is a red line beyond which they won't go? (Voters in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy etc will be watching.)

Some may raise a wider question. Was the euro a trap for Ireland, which has ended up undermining its independence? Certainly Ireland benefited from low inflation and low interest rates that the eurozone provided. But the flow of cheap capital fuelled an unsustainable property bubble that has led to outsiders essentially running the Irish economy. Emigration - the scourge of previous generations - has returned.

Back in November the Irish Times caused much debate and some uproar when it asked "was it for this?" - taking a line from .

Yeats asked "was it for this the wild geese spread?" It may seem strange the paper accepted to use a question about what the men of 1916 died for. But it pointed to a much deeper anxiety about the consequences of the bail-out. "There was the shame of it all," the paper wrote. " Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission etc...."

In the heat of an election campaign the Irish people can debate what has been lost and what has been gained in Dublin's relationship with Europe. Has European solidarity proved to be Ireland's friend in its time of need? Are the people prepared to go further, to accept that Brussels will have oversight of its national budget with the threat of sanctions? Will it be be prepared to take a significant step towards fiscal union, if that is what is decided?

I was reminded of the debate that has been missing during an exchange at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week. The Irish MEP Joe Higgins took to the floor and said of the bail-out: "it is a mechanism to make working-class people throughout Europe pay for the crisis of a broken financial system."

This stung Commission President Barroso into a response. He sounded irritated when he said: "let me tell you; the problems of Ireland were created by the irresponsible financial behaviour of some Irish institutions."

It was just a moment, an unscripted exchange, but it was a glimpse of what has been absent from the year-long fight to save the euro: a full-throated debate involving Europe's people. The Irish may now provide it.

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