Enoch Burke<\/a> over his behaviour after he was instructed to use \u201cthey\/them\u201d pronouns for a transgender student. <\/p>\nBurke is in prison for contempt of court for repeatedly refusing to obey a court order to stay off school property.<\/p>\n
Recently filed accounts show the school\u2019s insurance bill increased by 112 per cent from \u20ac65,230 to \u20ac138,966 in 2024. The school\u2019s legal and professional costs increased from \u20ac47,422 to \u20ac310,651.<\/p>\n
In her WRC case, Rogers gave evidence that she was hired as head of facilities with a mandate to ensure the school\u2019s boarding element ran efficiently and profitably. A third of students board at the school, where it costs up to \u20ac20,000 per year for seven-day boarders.<\/p>\n
In October 2023, Rogers reported concerns about staff payslips and time sheets that led her to suspect \u201cfraudulent time sheets\u201d were being processed by the school. <\/p>\n
She also reported that the unauthorised removal of files from the school was a potential data-protection breach. <\/p>\n
In December 2023, she reported that a school fuel card was being used for employees\u2019 private cars.<\/p>\n
Other issues reported concerned the school\u2019s phone banking system being registered in the name of an individual rather than the school. <\/p>\n
Rogers raised an issue about a contractor claiming to be owed money for work during the pandemic. When she investigated the issue, she found the school had overpaid the contractor. <\/p>\n
More than 20 alleged wrongdoings were reported by Rogers to the school principal, who helped her refer them to the school\u2019s board of management.<\/p>\n
In May 2024, she said the school restructured and appointed a new manager over her. She regarded this as a demotion and said she was sidelined from investigating issues she had uncovered. <\/p>\n
She said the newly-appointed manager did not seek her views about the irregularities but sought assistance from those \u201cimplicated\u201d by her investigations. She described her meetings with the new manager as \u201cextraordinary\u201d. <\/p>\n
At one meeting, she was told to place her phone in a drawer to prevent any covert recording. She said the manager then scanned the room to look for covert recording devices. <\/p>\n
Rogers alleged this manager suggested she had been \u201cgroomed\u201d by the person he suspected was responsible for many of the irregularities she had raised. <\/p>\n
She found the context, tone and subject matter of this meeting \u201cdeeply uncomfortable, oppressive and profoundly unprofessional\u201d. <\/p>\n
She went on sick leave and later resigned. <\/p>\n
A colleague of Rogers gave evidence that Rogers was very upset after this meeting. Another former colleague also gave evidence to the WRC of another inappropriate meeting with the same new manager. <\/p>\n
Rogers alleged she suffered bullying behaviour by this manager. She initially alleged constructive dismissal but withdrew that claim after legal submissions. <\/p>\n
The WRC found the contemporaneous evidence, including warm text messages Rogers sent her new manager when she was leaving, did not support her case for bullying or penalisation by the school. <\/p>\n
It found she was not demoted but the new manager was hired to allow the principal to focus on educational matters. <\/p>\n
The new manager who was appointed over Rogers gave evidence during the two-day hearing, which was held in Mullingar courthouse last September. <\/p>\n
He denied that any of his meetings with Rogers were oppressive. He admitted expressing concerns that some of their meetings may be covertly recorded. <\/p>\n
He said he had \u201cexperienced such covert recordings in previous roles and he remained wary of the same thereafter\u201d.<\/p>\n
The WRC found there was a significant conflict of evidence between Rogers and the new manager about their professional relationship, but that she did not raise a formal grievance with the school. <\/p>\n
It found her complaint was \u201cnot well-founded\u201d.<\/p>\n
The school denied that Rogers had made any disclosures capable of being deemed protected disclosures.<\/p>\n
It said several of the alleged disclosures were never formally reported but merely constituted discussions between colleagues regarding matters of interest arising in the normal course of duties for Rogers as head of facilities. <\/p>\n
The Irish Times asked the school\u2019s board of management a series of questions about the alleged irregularities uncovered by Rogers, but it did not respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A senior manager in Wilson\u2019s Hospital School in Westmeath made more than 20 protected disclosures about alleged financial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-379896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-westmeath"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}