Orange is the new Burke

Yes, that was my original point. Its for the courts to decide really, not a disciplinary panel imo. If he can convince a court that he received an order that impinged his rights in the first place then his subsequent actions might well be proved to be justifiable in protest.

Basically the case has opened up a can of worms going forward as to inclusion of anyone rights legally in what they wish to be called or identify as and the rights of those that are opposed to them having to such rights.

This is a very complex case now and Burke is the jesus of the right wing on it. We are going to be listening to this debate now for a long time, regardless of the outcome of Burkes case. There's a nut job around every corner mad to step up to the plate for any of these cases going forward.

If he can convince a court that he received an order that impinged his rights in the first place then his subsequent actions might well be proved to be justifiable in protest.

Well no. He has absolutely no right to act like a deranged lunatic towards his boss. What law would that be?

If he felt his rights were being impinged there was a process there. But he has burned that bridge by further acting like a deranged lunatic.

This is a very complex case now

It really isn't.

He has been fired from his job for acting like an aggressive bully.

It's neither unique, new or anyway complex.

OK, taking all the comments above on board, we are, after a quick Google, just gone 3 years since he was fired, he's in jail, and rightly so, for breach of court, but he is still getting paid his wages. Docked I know now, but still on the books as his wages, so for so simple a case, how is this happening?

Its probably a reasonable policy in general. It couldn't have predicted the lengths Burke would go to in defying the law.

It's a reasonable policy in the sense that the appeal is supposed to take a month or so, but once Burke injuncted his own appeal the Department should have tried all means to remove him from the payroll.

It's a substantial amount of public money which is paid over to a person who is going out of his way to disrupt the natural process. Whether it's going to the HC or anyone else is moot. He is still gaining from it. The Dept is double paying because they also have to pay for a replacement teacher.

Time now for the Dept. to grow a pair, because this could go on for years.

Even the amount of money that has been wasted in the HC over the past 3 years must be substantial. Not to mention what the school has had to fork out.

It's an absolute disgrace. Even this week with the HC allowing the injunction to go ahead against the remaining panel member when the panel has been disbanded. What is the actual point?

Is it any wonder we get reports like this.

Irish courts are the slowest in the EU at hearing and deciding cases, a new report has found.

The report, compiled by the Law Society of Ireland’s Centre for Justice and Law Reform, drew on national and international data to evaluate how the State’s justice institutions perform compared with other jurisdictions.

The Justice Indicators report, published on Wednesday, found that the average case disposal time of 541 days in 2020 was more than three times the European estimate of 168 days. But overall case disposition time here was cut by about 104 days between 2019 and 2024.

Is there a legal obligation for schools to cater for pupils' beliefs?

If my employer informed me of such a scenario and I proceeded to harass them at a work event, I would be guaranteed to be out of a job. It's just not an acceptable way to address work issues.

Because he's made every effort to prevent the appeal from taking place. He's not coming out with his job at the end of this.

That's the thing. there were processes available for him to escalate his "concerns". But he went full Enoch.

The thing is, even IF his rights were impinged, he had a process he could have followed.

The current case isn't about whether or not his rights were impinged. It's whether he acted correctly. And the fact is that whether or not his rights were impinged, he acted terribly and didn't follow correct process.

Why would anyone ever want to employ one of the Burke nut jobs?

Apart from their beliefs, the utter lack of respect for authority and the workplace norms they show regularly would put any employer off completely.

They're fundamentalists,not for changing.

When did religion have any concern for anybody or anything that wasn't in line with their dogma?

Remember the golden rule -

The Boss Might Not Be Always Right - But He's ALWAYS The Boss.

Strict adherence to this principal has served me very well over a long career in the CS.

And whether the boss was right or wrong, I always got paid at the end of the month.

An ironic respect for what? He is causing ongoing harassment of the school and pupils and wasting valuable court time and tax payers money.

If your answer is 'standing up for his beliefs' you are tone deaf or pretending to not understand what's going on. His beliefs have NEVER been affected working at that school and he could still be there if he wanted to be.