Na safe enough,I’m a church going RC man to the core,but a close friend went from strong RC to stronger C of I, never looked back,
And I was invited and attended bible study in Crosshaven church of Ireland
Made welcome,and real decent ordinary inclusive christians
'The process - designed by the state and catholic church’s
I got as far as here and felt the rest couldn’t be worth reading
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A good prod always helps any youngster do better in the Leaving Cert.
There was a long read about the Raheny situation in the Irish Times the other day too (posted in politics thread). Seems the process was designed to fail. I came to this conclusion myself when talking about it with FOTF Aodhán Ó’Riordáin on the phone recently.
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Tis a wonder how it never caught on.
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The lollipop man nearly buckled under the weight of it.
A good gust of wind and he’d have been parachuted into the parish over
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Principal must be reinstated, judge rules
‘Disastrous misjudgments’ by board damaged school progress, court told
MARY CAROLAN Legal Affairs Correspondent
A Co Wexford school principal who was unfairly dismissed and endured “terrible injustice” for more than 11 years due to “disastrous and unreasonable misjudgments” by his school’s board of management must be immediately reinstated to his post, a High Court judge has ordered.
The least Aodhagán Ó Suird can expect “is that his name be cleared, his reputation restored and that he is reinstated to his former position” as principal of Gaelscoil Moshíológ in Gorey, Mr Justice Brian Cregan said.
He was “entitled to walk back through the front gates of the school with his head held high and to resume the position of which he was so wrongfully deprived 11 years ago”.
The people responsible for “this debacle” are Melanie Ní Dhuinn, chairwoman of the school’s board of management and the board itself, the judge said.
Their “disastrous and unreasonable misjudgments” removed the leadership of the interdenominational school and left it without its founding principal for a number of years.
Those misjudgments have now created a situation where the school might have two principals; exposed it to “significant” legal costs; resulted in “enormous damage” to Mr Ó Suird’s reputation by making “utterly unfounded” allegations of fraud concerning pupil enrolment figures and dismissing him; and damaged the “great progress” the school had made between 2002 and 2012.
Ms Ní Dhuinn became chairwoman of the board in December 2011, he said. “Within weeks she had destroyed all the work done by her predecessors. It is a shocking legacy.”
The judge also criticised evidence given to the Labour Court concerning Mr Ó Suird by Malcolm Byrne, now a Fianna Fáil Senator.
A member of the board between late 2011 to 2015, Mr Byrne chaired a board hearing which decided on Mr Ó Suird’s dismissal and he gave evidence to the Labour Court opposing the latter’s appeal against his dismissal.
Costs
In his recently delivered 135-page judgment, the judge rejected the board’s appeal against a Labour Court finding that Mr Ó Suird was unfairly dismissed.
Mr Ó Suird should be reinstated to his position, with all his salary and pension entitlements, from January 2013, when his administrative leave should have ended, the judge directed.
He will hear submissions later on the precise orders to be made and on costs.
Mr Ó Suird was put on administrative leave on January 20th 2012 after an incident some days earlier where he lost his temper with a first-class pupil and, while the boy was seated, “physically pulled him towards” him by his jumper.
He described his actions as “entirely wrong”.
The boy’s parents within days accepted Mr Ó Suird’s apology and considered the incident a “minor” one. Complaints by some other parents about the same incident, apparently based on what their children told them, led to Mr Ó Suird being placed on administrative leave by the board without it hearing his side of the story, the judge said.
Concealed
Ms Ní Dhuinn, and later the board, concealed from Mr Ó Suird “enormously significant” evidence, letters from a solicitor for the boy’s parents reiterating, inter alia, they regarded the incident as minor and describing the board’s referral of the matter to the Health Service Executive as “excessive”.
The HSE investigation concluded in November 2012 the matter did not rise to the level of physical abuse of a child and recommended the school carry out its own investigation.
Ms Ní Dhuinn failed to do that and instead began to investigate other issues relating to pupil enrolment figures forwarded to the Department of Education, the judge said.
In a letter of May 2013, Ms Ní Dhuinn, for the first time and without notice to Mr Ó Suird, raised the issue of fraud concerning enrolment numbers provided to the department. He was suspended and in August 2015 was dismissed as principal with effect from November 2015.
A board disciplinary appeal panel dismissed his appeal over his dismissal but the Workplace Relations Commission and later the Labour Court found in his favour, ruled his dismissal was unfair and ordered his reinstatement. The board then appealed to the High Court.
The judge noted Mr Ó Suird at all times disputed any fraud and had stated, while there might have been some overstatement of enrolment figures, this was done for the benefit of the school and with full knowledge and approval of the then board.
The evidence to that effect was “overwhelming”, he said. There was no evidence of fraud and no finding of fraud was made either by the board disciplinary panel, an independent disciplinary appeals panel or the Labour Court.
By making the allegations, refusing to withdraw them until very late in the day and failing to provide a comprehensive report on them, the actions of Ms Ní Dhuinn and the board were “completely unreasonable and indefensible”.
The Labour Court finding that there was an “animus” against Mr Ó Suird by the board and Ms Ní Dhuinn was justified, he found.
Very odd .he is owed about 8 years salary and surely entitled to compo as assumed he can’t have been working since? Financial and reputational ruin
One of the Mexicans might tell us there is more to this but looks like a right strap on the BOM took a set again him
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From doing a bit of the owl Google it seems that the chair of the BoM is a respected educator which makes it more odd.
He must be owed over a million quid…does the school or the dept now need to fork that out
Dept
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Taxpayer
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Do many of the Irish Cricket lads who play for Ireland and England come from fee paying schools?
Could one of the north county Wexford residents step in here please?
It’s a long county from top to bottom.
Fingal which has traditionally backboned Oirish cricket would have players from rural dublin clubs & none of these would got to fee paying schools
probably different on the southside & in BOI
Country clubs would be similar to Fingal
as Cricket is getting more diverse too, i would assume there would be less players from fee paying schools
@ChairmanDan can inform us about England but I believe its the working mans game of the north
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11 years or are you counting a career break in that?
He was only dismissed in 2015 assume he was getting paid til then
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