{"id":503715,"date":"2026-06-17T04:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T04:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/503715\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T04:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T04:31:13","slug":"hearing-of-teaching-council-inquiry-into-enoch-burke-allegations-set-to-be-postponed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/503715\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing of Teaching Council inquiry into Enoch Burke allegations set to be postponed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Teaching Council<\/a> inquiry into allegations against Enoch Burke<\/a> is set to be postponed following the council\u2019s agreement to accommodate preliminary applications the jailed schoolteacher may seek to make. <\/p>\n

The fitness to teach inquiry was scheduled to start on Wednesday to consider allegations of professional misconduct against Burke.<\/p>\n

The allegations in the main arise from complaints relating to Burke\u2019s trespassing at his one-time workplace, Wilson\u2019s Hospital School in Co Westmeath<\/a>, in breach of court orders. Burke is currently in jail over his contempt of these orders.<\/p>\n

Burke on Monday initiated High Court<\/a> proceedings against the members of a panel convened to hear the fitness to teach inquiry \u2013 chairperson Andy Pike, Adrian Guinan and Clodagh O\u2019Hara. He sought an injunction halting the scheduled hearing from going ahead.<\/p>\n

When the matter came before Judge Miche\u00e1l O\u2019Connell on Tuesday, lawyers for the director of the Teaching Council sought to be joined to the case, highlighting the director\u2019s central role in the disciplinary process that is subject to Burke\u2019s proceedings. <\/p>\n

The director essentially operates as the \u201cprosecutor\u201d in a Teaching Council fitness to teach inquiry, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Burke objected to the joining of the director to the proceedings. He submitted that the panel was legally obliged to be independent of the director of the council. <\/p>\n

During the protracted hearing, Burke, for more than 30 minutes, repeatedly asked the judge to make inquiries as to how the director became aware of Burke\u2019s proceedings against the panel.<\/p>\n

In a repetitive over-and-back, the judge consistently denied Burke\u2019s request that he ask barrister Eoghan O\u2019Sullivan, for the director of the Teaching Council, about the issue.<\/p>\n

On occasion, O\u2019Sullivan rose to his feet and indicated to the court his willingness to provide information on how his client became aware of the proceedings. <\/p>\n

However, Burke insisted on the judge asking for this information. <\/p>\n

During the exchange, Burke unsuccessfully made an application for the judge to recuse himself from hearing his case. <\/p>\n

Burke said he had \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the judge\u2019s refusal to ask O\u2019Sullivan the question and accused him of not acting fairly and impartially. The judge noted that this was a serious accusation to make. <\/p>\n

He directed Burke\u2019s mother and sister, Martina and Ammi, to leave the courtroom during the exchange, following repeated disruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re insisting I bow to your demand and I\u2019m not going to bow,\u201d the judge told Burke. <\/p>\n

The judge said Burke had asked him \u201cprobably 40 times\u201d to ask O\u2019Sullivan about the issue and had refused 40 times. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 41st [time] isn\u2019t going to be any different,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan ultimately told the judge that Burke had served the proceedings on two Teaching Council email addresses. A staff member at the council then forwarded the case documents to the director\u2019s solicitors. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan said there was nothing untoward about this, noting that the director is a party to the ongoing fitness to teach process.<\/p>\n

The judge made an order joining the director of the council to the proceedings, noting the court\u2019s discretion to join parties to proceedings for the purposes of adjudicating effectively on issues in dispute. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan told the court his client proposed allowing Burke to make various preliminary applications on Wednesday in advance of the scheduled inquiry hearing. <\/p>\n

Given he was raising issues of bias against Pike, counsel said Burke could make an application for his recusal before the panel on Wednesday. The panel was also open to Burke making an adjournment application, he said. <\/p>\n

Regardless of the outcome of those preliminary applications, O\u2019Sullivan said the director was not proposing to call evidence in the inquiry on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Counsel later stated there was \u201cno reality\u201d to the substantive hearing proceeding in the short term. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf [Burke] wants to come back to court tomorrow he\u2019ll have time to do so,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said, adding that the High Court case may be rendered moot.<\/p>\n

Burke agreed to the proposal, noting that this was without prejudice to his position in the High Court proceedings. <\/p>\n

The judge adjourned the matter generally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Teaching Council inquiry into allegations against Enoch Burke is set to be postponed following the council\u2019s agreement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43693,73,61,60,43,40696,59],"class_list":["post-503715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-enoch-burke","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-teaching-council","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503715","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=503715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}