Despite the depth of the crisis, Ireland remains positively disposed to the European Union. Rather than just becoming a focus for anti-EU sentiment, its culture of referendums means that the electorate is keenly aware of issues affecting the union, says Gerard Cunningham.

As markets and commentators digest the latest imperfect solution to emerge from an EU get-together, most leaders are content to wait for committees of civil servants to worry about the details. They can then present the deal to their parliaments for national approval.

But Irish prime minister Enda Kelly faces an additional hurdle. His electorate expects a referendum, and while Kenny had promised one if his attorney general says it is necessary, the political need for a plebiscite may outweigh any legal requirements.

Ever since 1987's Crotty decision, when historian Richard Crotty went to the Supreme Court, the Irish government has been obliged to refer to the people any treaty which dilutes Irish sovereignty. Since then, they have voted on five EU treaties, in some cases more than once.

In a union plagued by charges of democratic deficit and remoteness from its peoples, the Irish cherish the opportunity to hold Brussels to account, even if only for a moment. A quick straw poll by this author indicates that even among confirmed Yes voters, a majority believe that the issue should be put before the voters.

And despite rising anti-EU sentiment (much of it inspired by the costs of the IMF/EU bailout) the Irish remain more favourably disposed than most to the union. A Spring 2011 Eurobarometer survey found 54 percent of the Irish had a positive image of the union, behind only Romania and Bulgaria, and well ahead of the EU average of 44 percent.

Because of their habitual treaty-inspired referendum votes, the Irish are also better informed about the EU than most (or so they tell themselves anyway). But whatever the truth behind that perception, they do at least debate the future of the union on a regular basis.

With that in mind, perhaps it is no coincidence that Irish attitudes to the union have been consistently more positive than the EU average since the late 1980s, coinciding with the Crotty decision and the moment when the Irish, alone among Europeans, were given the right to a say in the future direction of the project.

America prides itself on its "laboratories of democracy", the 50 states which make up the union. The idea is simple. New ideas are tried out by the states (or in some cases, cities and counties) and those which work filter upwards to federal level.

In practice, it doesn't always work that way, but there is merit to the idea. All politics may be local, as an American politician once said, but that doesn't mean the lessons learned cannot be applied at national – or international – level.

The EU is far from a perfect laboratory for politics, but it does have in its member states 27 laboratories.

Ireland faces major problems, with one in seven unemployed (half of those jobless for over a year), eye-watering borrowings, and the grim promise of more austerity both from government and the opposition benches in parliament. And yet, for the most part, the people still believe in the European ideal, or at least some variant of it. When France rejected the European Constitution, the EU quickly ran from the idea of popular votes. The "optics" – governments running from their voters –  were not good.

The democratic deficit is a tired refrain in debates on Europe, but experience from the Irish democratic laboratory suggests that, as the EU faces an existential crisis, it should move away from technocratic solutions and embrace a truly engaging politics.

Image: Irish PM Enda Kenny, by William Murphy. CC licenced.