An inquiry panel of the Teaching Council has heard claims by Enoch Burke that a fitness-to-teach inquiry into his alleged misconduct for repeatedly showing up at his school when suspended and in breach of court orders is a \u201chypocritical witch hunt”.<\/p>\n
The panel is to rule on Friday over applications by Burke to have it and its chairperson stand down from overseeing the inquiry.<\/p>\n
The chairperson, Andy Pike, said the three-person panel required time to adjudicate on detailed and complex submissions made at a preliminary hearing of the inquiry on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Burke had called on Pike to recuse himself from chairing the inquiry on grounds of objective bias.<\/p>\n
He separately applied for the panel as a whole to take similar action because he claimed they had breached their obligation to be independent due to their conduct and decisions during the preliminary stages of the inquiry.<\/p>\n
Burke told the hearing that it was \u201csimply outrageous\u201d to consider that Pike could approach the hearing with a fair and impartial mind.<\/p>\n
‘Mocked and parodied’<\/p>\n
He claimed the chairperson had posted \u201canother Enoch float\u201d on his X (formerly Twitter) account on March 17th, 2023 together with a link for a video which \u201cmocked and parodied\u201d him and his suspension from Wilson\u2019s Hospital school.<\/p>\n
Burke said the post, which had 1,742 views, indicated the issue before the inquiry was \u201chilarious and a cause of amusement”.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe promoted that view publicly,\u201d said Burke.<\/p>\n
He accused Pike of finding the issue \u201ca fit object of mirth\u201d which he claimed was \u201cpreposterous and utterly hypocritical”.<\/p>\n
Burke complained that he had been \u201cdragged over the coals\u201d and accused of bringing a profession he loved into disrepute, while Pike was \u201claughing behind the scenes”.<\/p>\n
‘Hypocritical witch hunt’<\/p>\n
He claimed the Teaching Council was indulging a vexatious complaint against him for its own reasons which had turned the process into \u201ca hypocritical witch hunt”.<\/p>\n
The inquiry heard Pike had posted another tweet on July 25, 2018 in which he recommended that anyone with an interest in mental health or LGBT issues should follow the account of Neville Southall, the former Everton and Wales goalkeeper, as it was \u201cthe most positive Twitter feed I have ever seen”.<\/p>\n
Burke noted Southall had posted a comment just three days earlier about \u201cmaking the world a little less binary”.<\/p>\n
He also took issue with a retweet by Pike on November 27th, 2025 about Wilson\u2019s Hospital by someone whom he claimed went out of their way to oppose his (Burke\u2019s) position.<\/p>\n
Burke said the panel had blurred the lines in their obligation to be independent and impartial because of their interactions with the Teaching Council.<\/p>\n
He made a similar complaint about the panel\u2019s legal assessor, Lorna Lynch SC, whom he claimed was compromising the panel\u2019s independence, while complaining that the panel\u2019s two other members \u2013 Adrian Guinan and Clodagh O\u2019Hara \u2013 had not asked him any questions at a previous hearing.<\/p>\n
Burke also claimed the complaint made to the Teaching Council which has resulted in him facing a fitness-to-teach inquiry was \u201cfrivolous, vexatious, made in bad faith and an abuse of process”.<\/p>\n
He told the panel that he had concerns about the bona fides of both Pike and the Teaching Council.<\/p>\n
Burke said Pike held a radical viewpoint on transgender issues which did not reflect the law of the land.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/p>\n
In summary, he argued the chairperson had demonstrated a reasonable apprehension of bias, while his use of social media was not compatible with chairing the inquiry.<\/p>\n
In reply, however, counsel for the Teaching Council, Eoghan O\u2019Sullivan BL, urged the panel to set aside Burke\u2019s \u201crighteous indignation, hyperbole and poetic licence”.<\/p>\n
He claimed the teacher specialised in generality and details were \u201cnot the friend\u201d of\u00a0 Burke.<\/p>\n
While the teacher was very fond of recourse to his own rights, O\u2019Sullivan said he had little regard for the rights of others.<\/p>\n
Counsel stressed that the inquiry was not about \u201cpronouns or religious beliefs\u201d but about Burke showing up repeatedly at his school after he had been suspended and in breach of court orders.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan accused him of repeatedly seeking to mischaracterise the purpose of the inquiry for his own agenda.<\/p>\n
Tweets<\/p>\n
He said Pike\u2019s link about a St Patrick\u2019s Day float was to an account which no longer exists, while his other tweet had not advocated anything about pronouns or transgenderism.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan pointed out the third tweet was about the good work of SNAs at Wilson\u2019s Hospital and had nothing to do with issues before the inquiry.<\/p>\n
He argued that two members of the panel not asking questions of Mr Burke could not be perceived as demonstrating bias, while Lynch had made interventions to ensure he had got a fair hearing.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan suggested that Burke made claims of bias \u201cas soon as someone disagrees with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The start of the hearing was delayed over objections by the teacher to his family being required to give their full names to security staff to attend the hearing.<\/p>\n
Burke, who was brought to the Teaching Council\u2019s headquarters in Maynooth, Co Kildare from Castlerea Prison, claimed it was \u201cwrong and intimidating\u201d that his family members were met in the building by security staff who were \u201cwell-built men, dressed in black.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke family<\/p>\n
The inquiry heard that the Teaching Council had agreed to allow several members of the Burke family to attend the hearing without having to give their names.<\/p>\n
They included Burke\u2019s mother, Martina; his sister, Amii and brother, Isaac, who ultimately did not attend the inquiry but stayed in the vicinity for most of the day.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan had claimed the objection raised by Burke about his family attending the hearing was \u201cabsolute nonsense\u201d and designed to frustrate the process of holding the inquiry.<\/p>\n
Burke was suspended by Wilson\u2019s Hospital in 2022 and later dismissed by the school last month over his refusal to follow a direction by the then school principal, Niamh McShane, to address a student by a new name as well as the pronouns \u201cthey\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d as well as his subsequent conduct with the principal.<\/p>\n
The German and history teacher, who has spent over 700 days in prison over his refusal to obey court orders, maintains the request went against his religious beliefs as an evangelical Christian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquiry panel of the Teaching Council has heard claims by Enoch Burke that a fitness-to-teach inquiry into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-505505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505505","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=505505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}