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Japanese MP Taro Yamamoto interrupts bill signing
VOICES
Surrealing in the Years Maybe the time for political stunts is now
Another week of outrages reminds us of the value of urgency.
MANY WILL NOT know the name Taro Yamamoto, and fewer still will remember it a week, a month, or a year from now.
Yamamoto is a Japanese member of parliament and former actor (notable credits include Battle Royale), who went viral this week when he launched himself at his parliamentary colleagues in an attempt to physically stop a law being signed.
The law in question was an overhaul of Japan’s harsh immigration statute that sees many immigrants held in detention camps where 17 people have died between 2007 and 2022. Yamamoto tried to stop the bill from being signed because he believed the new law would not go far enough in addressing these conditions.
Dáil Éireann has not, at least not since its earliest days, been the backdrop for legislators clambering over one another like a Caravaggio painting to express their will by sheer physical force.
This week marked the closest we’ve come to such a scene in quite a while. Sinn Féin TD John Brady crossed the floor of the Dáil to hand Minister Darragh O’Brien the pager of a retained firefighter who was protesting pay conditions outside Leinster House that morning. Hopefully you’ve been able to read this description of events without fainting in horror.
It was a relatively simple stunt. A prop representing the frustrations of around 2,000 on-call part-time firefighters who believe they are overworked and unfairly paid. Brady delivered the pager, said a few words, and went back to his seat.
Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl condemned the gambit as a “charade”, “completely out of order” and “absolutely outrageous”.
Was it outrageous? To hear the retained firefighters tell it, the true outrage might be the purported failure of the government to address concerns around pay, terms, conditions, recruitment and retention for 2,000 workers who form an essential part of Ireland’s emergency services infrastructure. To others, the outrage might be the shock that pagers still exist in 2023.
Outrageousness is in the eye of the beholder, as the well-known saying goes. There was plenty to be had this week.
650 people were temporarily laid off at the Tara Mines, hundreds of people drowned off the coast of Greece, a former US President was charged with crimes (again), and a former UK Prime Minister was found to have lied to his own parliament.
This was the moment that Sinn Féin TD John Brady crossed the floor of Dáil Éireann to present Minister Darragh O'Brien with the on-call pager of a retained firefighter.
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) June 15, 2023
Retained firefighters are threatening mass resignation over pay, recruitment, retention and other issues. pic.twitter.com/BB1fGzooNs
Of course, when it comes to the outrageous, the Ceann Comhairle can only play what’s it front of him. He doesn’t control the outrageous events that unfold in boardrooms, in parliaments, in Mar-a-Lago or the Mediterranean. He also doesn’t actually have any choice when it comes to enforcing the Dáil rules.
But regardless of the rules, there’s no reason why the Dáil should be a sanatorium where the artefacts of the real world have no place.
And after all, we’re not talking about some kind of passing-law-by-combat system. We’re just talking about injecting a little reality into the chambers that can easily become ensconced from the reality beyond their gates.
To give a local example, one of the most contentious stories this week was marked by exactly the kind of pageantry that elevates something from ‘issue’ to ‘spectacle’.
Having been denied permission for outdoor facilities by Dublin City Council, LGBTQ+ Street 66 harnessed all the chaos of social media to note that decision was followed just days later with the installation of council bike racks.
Complaints made by the proprietors – which involved pointing out that the decision came during Pride month, and decorating the bike racks with rainbow flags – quickly spiralled into a tit-for-tat that riddled what is known as “Dublin Twitter” for days.
Great news street being pedestrianised weekends but without seating what’s the point . And a hideous bike rack outside the door . pic.twitter.com/TgFfdhxEWe
— Street 66 Dublin (@st66dublin) June 14, 2023
Some believe a much-needed social space for LGBTQ people took precedence. Others have criticised the business for seeking to claim a public space that is now being used for a public amenity.
I’m not an urban planning designer and, statistically speaking, neither are you. Nevertheless, let’s all accept a few facts.
Dublin doesn’t have enough outdoor social spaces, and it doesn’t have enough bike racks (along with countless other amenities). Private businesses shouldn’t necessarily be so nakedly self-interested, but Dublin City Council also probably shouldn’t make decisions that affect businesses without any explanation.
Acknowledging each of these things in turn doesn’t resolve the dispute, but it does offer a foundation for a discussion on how to make a city better.
That such a discussion took off in the first place, however, is a testament to stepping outside of procedure. In this case, that would have looked like submitting a question to the council and waiting God only knows how long for a response while the decision has time to set itself in stone and become accepted, irreversible, and no longer commanding of interest.
By flouting this procedure, Street 66 at least allowed us all to see inside the decisions being made for Ireland’s capital city, and think for ourselves about how such decisions come to be made.
After another week of outrages, perhaps the time for the bold act, the stunt, is now.
