Gorey Gaelscoil debacle - astonishing legal smackdown

The childs parents bizarrely releasing a statement through their solicitor is moot when it comes to child safety and welfare.

They would be ones that ensure that in that school that the chances of it happening again would be mitigated. As is best practice. Given that I don’t have any experience / knowledge of that school I wouldn’t be in a position to say which is not the same as there are no procedures that could be implemented.

I do think it’s very very telling that you use increasingly emotive language and conflate raising concerns about the lack of professionalism and indeed immoral behaviour of the chair as synomous with supporting child abuse in schools. I’m sure you’ll receive a **** load of tks for that. However it is not an either or -two wrongs do not make a right and I stand by my assertion that her behaviour is not conducive to / compatible with the teaching profession which is particularly relevant in her case given her access to trainee teachers and links to the Teaching Council.

The reality is that she along with the board spectacularly failed to follow child protection advice from both the HSE and the parents

Which advice?

What mitigation could the Board possibly put in to prevent the person running the school from assaulting a child again?

Security Guard?

Well no the HSE said

“An incident did occur, however the incident cannot be said to have constituted physical abuse of a child,” 

Again if he that in the street he would have been charged with assault, in a school sure tis grand.

It comes back to our woeful treatment of children and child protection in this country as a whole.

Absolutely no argument from me that the BOM didn't follow the stated procedures, if they did this cretin would have been back in school that month.

I never suggested it was, the WRC is based largely on correct procedures being followed. Like I said several times they were not followed.

The reason they weren't followed was to keep him away from the school and children in that school safe. Actual mitigation, not some pen pusher in the HSE dictating unworkable non existent mitigation.

Yes the HSE said no physical abuse of the child occurred, but if he did it on the street it would assault under or criminal justice system.

You seem to have changed your tune, were you not musing that he put pressure on the parents to bizarrely release a statement through their solicitor.

Which was and remains unexplained and beyond odd. I agree with you on that.

You linked to 1 decision. Its customary to confirm previous decisions by someone who has proven, on multiple occasions, to make poor decisions.

That doesnt mean that every decision was wrong, but of course you know that but just want to strawman.

The BOM didn't make a poor decision, they actually mitigated properly.

Unless you think this was the first time in his 30 odd year career he did something like this?

I mean lost his temper and became violent towards a 7 year old for the crime of stamping feet? The week a new BOM were instated, I mean how unlucky with that be?

OR do you think maybe there is a lot more to this story?

That doesn't change the fact that the bodies who investigated this seem to think the violence angle is a nothingburger. They acknowledge an incident happened but wasn't worthy of dismissal.

The only body that "investigated" it was the HSE. Who are woefully inadequate in almost everything but in particular child welfare.

Being violent towards a child is not gross misconduct or grounds for dismissal.

He was dismissed for cooking the books. Which is expressly stated as gross misconduct.

This is what he was fired for. Again his actions towards the child is not even a sanctionable offense. Mad isn't it?

It's also worth noting an independent Disciplinary Panel upheld the BOMs decision, which contains a unions rep and a rep from the Department.

The letter from parents is moot, what he did to that young child is not gross misconduct.

It's not my opinion.

a Principal may be dismissed without recourse to the previous stages.

Fraud or deliberate falsification of documents 

The guidance is from the department, cooking the books is a sackable offence. Again a representative from the Department of Education sat on the independent Appeals panel and upheld the BOMs decision.

Not paying motor tax is hardly unique, it's also not a viable excuse in court.

Although this Judge who again was in charge of the Siteserv investigation thinks a bit of fraud is grand, needs to be applauded actually.

“the board was aware in each and every year – and in particular in 2009 – that there might be a slight exaggeration of the enrolment figures. This was done in order to build the school, to progress the school, to increase the number of schoolteachers, for the benefit of the children of the area and to ensure that they all had a better education. It was motivated from first to last by a sense of idealism of a group of parents who were pioneers in their community establishing an inter-denominational gaelscoil.”

Kind of sums Ireland really.

First and foremost the parents of the child had no issue with the HSE over the incident and wrote a letter through their solicitor, second not being smart but do you have children of school going age, we have and have had incidents in national school of a boy in second and third class spitting, and biting girls on the shoulders and knock their lunch over etc, the principal wanted a softly softly approach due to family circumstances and was not acting on numerous complaints and it come to a head when he slapped and broke the skin on the girl’s shoulder to draw blood through her jumper, the BOM didn’t want anything done because the family was pillars of the community and the shame, the dogs in the street knew about this for two years, basically spoiled rotten and got his way at home .

in secondary school bulling is rampant and the poor teachers get away with murder, in our school one male teacher teaching leaving cert subjects has missed a huge amount of classes due to being involved in gaa, soccer, rugby, and any away trips with TY students and at teacher meetings this was brought up with the principal by most of the parents and he stated sport was important and was covering for the teacher, a good friend in Donegal first year daughter was bullied and assaulted in the toilets and the BOM and principal wanted to cover it up as bad publicly for the schools image.

in school there is all types of children who would test any person’s patience, this seemed a minor incident. As for the wrong numbers being returned at that time smaller schools we’re doing that to get extra teachers and special needs teachers for their schools like Gael schools and educates together schools and national schools to get SNA to help children that need this, my nephew school done this for him because he is slightly autistic and this helped so much when he went into secondary school.

finally as has being stated the judges in the different court cases all found the head of the BOM wanting and on a power trip.

second not being smart but do you have children of school going age, we have and have had incidents in national school of a boy in second and third class spitting, and biting girls on the shoulders

Not relevant.

This 7 year old stamped their feet. No one was bit or spat at.

Teachers I speak to say exaggerating pupil numbers like this is common practice. You're a few pupils short of a new teacher, so you add in a few names that are sort of there but not, so now you don't have one teacher trying to teach third and fourth class all together in one room. Fraud? Technically yes, in tiny letters. Sackable offence? That's absurd.

This was a case of small-minded people in a position of power using that power wrongly to destroy an individual they had an animosity against.