Dublin City Council has refused to allow a debate on an emergency motion; a proposal from Independent Councillors Malachy Steenson and Gavin Pepper committing the Council to call for the release of Enoch Burke.
The motion was allowed onto the agenda under Lord Mayor’s business but at the beginning of the monthly meeting a debate on the motion was refused by 46 votes to 6. All of the main parties with representatives on the Council voted en bloc to refuse a debate.
The proposal was supported by five independent councillors; Malachy Steenson, Gavin Pepper, Christy Burke, Niall Ring, Mannix Flynn, and Independent Ireland Councillor Philip Sutcliffe.
Enoch Burke is serving his third term in prison and is facing his second Christmas inside after he was again arrested at the beginning of September outside Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath where Burke was a teacher and from which position he was let go over his refusal to use the chosen gender pronoun of a male pupil.
Burke was first suspended at the beginning of the Autumn term in 2022 when he claimed that he was being denied his freedom to refuse to accept the gender designation on religious grounds. Since then he has been arrested and imprisoned over his refusal to comply with court orders to stay away from the school.
Speaking after the refusal of the debate on the motion to free Burke, Councillor Malachy Steenson said that he and Councillor Pepper had tabled the motion as they believed that Enoch Burke ought not to be detained any longer and that he was acting in defence of his strongly held beliefs.
Steenson noted in particular the refusal of the Sinn Féin members of the Council to stand by their own party’s traditional defence of the right of such prisoners to be in effect recognised as political prisoners.