{"id":508486,"date":"2026-06-19T20:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508486\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:29:11","slug":"enoch-burke-fails-in-bid-to-have-fitness-to-teach-inquiry-chair-and-panel-recused-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508486\/","title":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke fails in bid to have fitness-to-teach inquiry chair and panel recused \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jailed teacher Enoch Burke<\/a> has failed to obtain the recusal of a three-member fitness-to-teach panel from hearing an inquiry into his alleged conduct. <\/p>\n

At a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Burke made separate applications for panel chair Andy Pike and the panel as a whole to recuse themselves due to alleged objective bias. The other panel members are Adrian Guinan and Clodagh O\u2019Hara.<\/p>\n

The fitness-to-teach inquiry relates in the main to complaints regarding allegations that Burke trespassed at Wilson\u2019s Hospital secondary school<\/a> in Co Westmeath<\/a> in breach of court orders. <\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s Hospital suspended and later dismissed Burke over his conduct towards then-principal Niamh McShane at a school religious event in June 2022. The confrontation arose in circumstances where McShane had earlier directed teachers to address a student, who wished to transition their gender, by a new name and with they\/them pronouns.<\/p>\n

Burke, an evangelical Christian, maintains this request went against his religious beliefs. He was formally dismissed from Wilson\u2019s Hospital last month and is in Castlerea Prison for failing to comply with High Court<\/a> orders to stay away from the school. <\/p>\n

Delivering the decision of the panel, Pike said two of his own social media posts and another he shared did not give rise to a reasonable apprehension that he would be unable to give Burke an impartial hearing. <\/p>\n

Regarding a post of March 17th, 2023, featuring a Burke-themed float in a St Patrick\u2019s Day parade, Pike said a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts would know it was a retweet of another individual, along with his own comment \u201cand another Enoch float\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said his post \u201cdid not ridicule\u201d or mock Burke, as alleged by the teacher at a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, and there was \u201cno cogent, rational link\u201d between the content of his tweet and any reasonable apprehension of bias.<\/p>\n

Pike also noted the tweet was posted 1\u00bd years before the decision of the investigating committee to forward the complaint made against Burke to the disciplinary panel. <\/p>\n

Pike said a tweet he posted on July 25th, 2018, advising anyone with an interest in mental health and LGBT issues to follow another account, did not give rise to objective bias.<\/p>\n

He said Burke\u2019s reference to him promoting and advocating the use of the \u201cthey\u201d pronoun on the back of this tweet was \u201cinaccurate\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Enoch Burke claims fitness-to-teach panel not public after family refused to provide namesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He also said a tweet he reposted on November 27th last contained no reference to Wilson\u2019s Hospital School, that the individual in the tweet was a student who had a positive experience with an unnamed school and that there was no reference to Burke or his returning to jail. <\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s application that the panel recuse themselves based on a lack of independence and their previous decision-making was also unsuccessful. <\/p>\n

He submitted on Wednesday that he received correspondence regarding the investigation into his alleged conduct from Fieldfisher Solicitors, the legal representatives for the director of the Teaching Council, instead of from the panel. <\/p>\n

Pike said on Friday the director and her legal representatives are required under the rules governing fitness-to-teach inquiries to deal with pre-inquiry correspondence and it would not be appropriate for the panel to engage directly with Burke.<\/p>\n

The lack of independence ground was also based on the role played by senior counsel and legal assessor Lorna Lynch as perceived by Burke. <\/p>\n

Pike said the panel was entitled to benefit from the advice of the legal assessor regarding legal points and procedures and that her role was to ensure the process was fair and the rights of the teacher were upheld. <\/p>\n

He said decisions not to discontinue or adjourn the inquiry and to grant anonymisation to a witness were arrived at \u201cfairly and properly\u201d at previous preliminary hearings and that there was no reasonable apprehension of bias. <\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s hearing, held online, was solely for the panel to deliver its decision regarding the recusal applications, but Burke voiced his criticism of the decision, calling it a \u201cgrave\u201d error.<\/p>\n

A statement from the Teaching Council said a new date would be set to continue the inquiry in public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jailed teacher Enoch Burke has failed to obtain the recusal of a three-member fitness-to-teach panel from hearing an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43693,73,61,60,43,28205,40696,59],"class_list":["post-508486","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-second-level","tag-teaching-council","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508486","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=508486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}