Gorey Gaelscoil debacle - astonishing legal smackdown

He is contradicting himself.

Mr Justice Cregan found that, “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.”

Following a Garda investigation on foot of a Department of Education inspector’s report, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided against any prosecution concerning the enrolment matter, he noted.

Why would the inspector send the report to the Gardaí?

But again he admits fraud.

Mr Ó Suird disputed any fraud and said that 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 old board.

It appeared Mr Ó Suird was dismissed because he had included nine children in the enrolment returns to the department in September-October 2009, nine children who existed in real life and had attended the school but were no longer doing so, he said. This was done with the knowledge and approval of the then board and in a context of a lack of legislative clarity relating to enrolments.

9 children on the books who were not attending the school is fraudulent whatever way you want to paint it.

Under what circumstances can they be replaced ? A sitting board does so for a set time then a new board is appointed. Often the chairperson as the patrons nominee stays on the board past the 2 year mark. In my experience it is very rare to have a totally new board appointed

I’m not sure what point you are making re the principal being on the board. It would be fairly challenging to run a board without the principal on it. All decisions taken by the principal is ratified by the board that is what it is - you seem to think the principal was up to all sorts while a new board was appointed. It simply does not work like that.

Whether you like it or not or indeed accept it or not the board did not follow due process and indeed the chair of the board circumvented due process by not sharing relevant docs as compelled to. This is fact there is no equivocation , no maybes should have or could have. Anything else is you grasping at straws trying to make “ the facts” fit your narrative.

and as long as its not massively overstated its taken as the norm, otherwise you are going to have teachers sea-sawing between local schools from one year to the next if there are schools right on the limit.

Its obvious that this is the case, but I guess it denies you your pound of flesh so you question it.

The tangible evidence would seem to be the response from everyone who investigated the claim?

Horses mouth.

Mr Ó Suird disputed any fraud and said that 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 old board.

It appeared Mr Ó Suird was dismissed because he had included nine children in the enrolment returns to the department in September-October 2009, nine children who existed in real life and had attended the school but were no longer doing so, he said. This was done with the knowledge and approval of the then board and in a context of a lack of legislative clarity relating to enrolments.

This is old but 38 investigations found 26 offences. Clearly it does happen.

Not quite. They caught 26 in 6 years. They only investigated 38 schools. So, of the schools investigated, well over 50% of them were.....to use your words........cooking the books.

You'd want to be a special kind of naive to think it only happened in 26 schools.

Why didn't the Gardai pursue? It was the DPP who didn't pursue. The DPP either didn't think it was a crime or didn't think they had a chance of conviction. It was 9 students, all of whom were enrolled in the school at one point. Given that it's €200 per pupil amounting to a grand total of €1800, clearly we aren't talking about anything remotely like the €250k fraud you highlighted.

Given there is rather stiff penalties for this as you have illustrated, I imagine it is not as widespread as being suggested.

Again though I wonder why this admitted fraud which the department sent to the Gardaí who then sent it to the DPP was given a pass.

So they investigated 38 and found 26 were doing it ,so there's 4000 primary schools, basic maths suggests it's widespread

Look at my post. I said the two examples are not remotely similar. One was prosecuted as it was on a grand scale. The other was much ado about nothing.

And there is no admittance to fraud by the Principal. Even the passage you highlighted above (in itallics) clearly says that the Principal disputes that he committed fraud. The DPP seems to agree with him as there was no prosecution. An overstatement doesn't mean that there was fraud. Kind of like someone saying something that isn't true doesn't exactly mean they are lying.

Malcolm Byrne….pah.

Well no basic maths suggested a tiny fraction of schools were flagged for this practice.

It's not a very hard thing to investigate. Schools are legally required to keep logs.

Yes 26 of 38 flagged schools as a fraction of 3,300 is tiny.

Basic Maths.

What you are suggesting without any evidence is the vast majority of the 3,300 are doing it although as we have the seen the penalties for doing so can be quite severe.

Why did you replace the second half of sentence with dots? And you accuse me of twisting and turning.

Here it is again.

Yes 26 of 38 flagged schools as a fraction of 3,300 is tiny.

What you are suggesting is their is 1000s of phantom children who exist in name only on school books, that level fraud over a relative short period would stretch into the 10s if not 100s of millions.

Logs that, when not checked, could be wrong. And again, just because they are wrong doesn't mean that fraud is taking place.

Only 38 were checked in a 6 year period. That means we don't know what was happening in the other 3,962 or thereabouts schools.

The case has been thoroughly investigated by loads of professional bodies and yet you think you are right and all of them are wrong.

Here's the basic stuff.

The DPP didn't pursue the Principal because either:

1. No crime was committed by the Principal, or
2. The DPP had no reasonable chance of a successful prosecution.

And given that everyone is entitled to be the presumption of innocence in the absence of a conviction, it's inaccurate to state that he committed a crime.

And on top of that:

The HSE found there was no crime committed by the Principal.

The LRC found there was no crime committed by the Principal.

The Labour Court found there was no crime committed by the Principal.

And the High Court found there was no crime committed by the Principal.

You are wrong. Will ya just let it go.