A Cork City primary school principal has gone out on stress leave, claiming to have been the victim of malicious rumours that he was drunk in school.<\/p>\n
It is understood that a group of parents removed nearly 100 children from Gaelscoil Pheig Sayers last week due to concerns over health and safety.<\/p>\n
The school, on Redemption Rd, had 280 pupils at the beginning of this school year.<\/p>\n
The principal, Aidan Breathnach, claims to have been the victim of an \u201corchestrated campaign\u201d, with allegations being spread online that he was drunk in school.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mr Breathnach said: \u201cDue to the sheer shock, heartbreak and stress over the last few days I have not responded to the false, negative, and defamatory commentary being made about me since Friday.<\/p>\n
\n I can categorically say that the allegations against me that I was under the influence of alcohol in school on Tuesday, April 14, are completely untrue and unfounded.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Mr Breathnach, who has been principal since 2013, said: \u201cOn Monday, 13 April, I was in Kerry General Hospital\u00a0\u2014 hospital records will pertain to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“On Tuesday morning, 14th, I went to school without my medication for vertigo, which I was diagnosed with at Christmas. Again, I have doctors reports to verify this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout my medication I was unfortunately very disorientated throughout the day. Anybody who saw me or who spoke to me that day would have seen how disorientated I was…\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Breathnach said he spent most of his day on Tuesday with the school\u2019s secretary and caretaker \u201cwho will vouch for me that I definitely was not under the influence of alcohol”.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have wrongfully been the target of a school protest and online social media trolls which have torn my reputation apart and damaged the name of the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my 13 years as principal, I have never entered the school property under the influence of alcohol. My duty of care was always to the children and I stand over that.”<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cTo the parents who took their children out, I completely understand when you had false information… This whole protest and the online circus that followed has deeply affected both me and my family. I am now out on stress leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully intend to return as principal of Gaelscoil Pheig Sayers and continue the work I have being doing for the last 13 years to build and grow this great school into the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: \u201cWe are engaging with the patron and board of management of the school on this matter.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork City primary school principal has gone out on stress leave, claiming to have been the victim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-410668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-social-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410668","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=410668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}