Teacher Enoch Burke owes almost €210,000 in fines for breaching court orders in what the High Court has described as a “senseless and misguided campaign”.
Mr Justice Brian Cregan delivered a ruling setting out the total amount of court-imposed fines for contempt of court which Mr Burke must pay for trespassing at Wilson’s Hospital School since January 2023.
He said the starting point for his order was 26 January 2023, when a High Court judge first imposed a daily fine of €700 on Mr Burke for trespassing on the school property, despite injunctions directing him to stay away.
The fine was doubled to €1,400 in a court hearing in December 2024.
Judge Cregan’s judgment sets out the periods of time during which Mr Burke trespassed at the school and the amounts payable for those periods.
He said the school had initially calculated that Mr Burke owed just over €452,000, but that figure included weekends and bank holidays.
Judge Cregan said it was more appropriate to base the total on school days.
The judge found that Mr Burke owed €273,200 in total, but reduced this figure to take into account fines collected by a receiver over his salary, and by the courts service, as well as fees due to the receiver, totalling almost €65,000.
This left a total amount of €208,268.18.
Judge Cregan said he had concerns about the proportionality of the fines compared to Mr Burke’s income as a teacher. But he said Mr Burke had refused to provide information on his assets and liabilities despite being requested to do so.
The judge said the court had no information on his financial position and could not consider whether to reduce the fines to a lesser amount.
He said Mr Burke could challenge the proportionality of the fines provided he furnished a statement of affairs to the court.
The judge said he also noted that Mr Burke had not appealed any of the orders imposing fines upon him to the Court of Appeal.
He said Mr Burke had paid a very heavy price for his refusal to obey court orders.
As well as the fines, he had been imprisoned for more than 700 days and is also facing the enormous legal costs of the school running to “many hundreds of thousands of euro”.
He is also facing a disciplinary hearing from the Teaching Council.
The judge said Mr Burke had wasted 700 days of his life in prison, his financial position was undermined and his reputation as a teacher was damaged.
Judge Cregan said this was all due to a “senseless and misguided” campaign to breach a court order.
And he said none of it would have happened, if Mr Burke had remained outside the school property and obeyed court orders.
However, the judge said, Mr Burke had discovered that “the rule of law applies to everybody, including Mr Burke”.
Mr Burke was not present in court today but appeared in court via videolink.