Teacher Enoch Burke returned to Wilson’s Hospital School as it reopened after the holidays, where he accused the government of taking “every penny” of his salary – and the Attorney General of leaving him where he “would be essentially hungry and thirsty now and barefoot walking down the street”.
Mr Burke continues to attend the school despite repeatedly being held to be in contempt of court and spending 500 days in prison for failing to stay away. For his part, the teacher insists he is still employed by the school since he was initially suspended on full pay and has appealed his January 2023 formal dismissal.
Recently, the Court of Appeal found for Mr Burke in his claim that there could be a reasonable apprehension of bias if an ASTI representative remained on the panel hearing the appeal of his dismissal from employment, give that Wilson’s Hospital School mirrored the advice given by teachers’ union when the school instructed teachers to use “they” pronouns for a student.
Mr Burke says that he had “a responsibility to do what is right”, after he was instructed to use the ‘they/them’ pronouns for a pupil at the school.
In an interview with the Irish Mirror, Mr Burke said that his salary was being “stripped off me” – and that while he was still on the school payroll and was receiving payslips, “every penny” was being diverted from his bank account.
“Not only do I have to stand in the corridor and be stopped from teaching and doing my duty but my salary is being stripped off me. I still get paid, I have in my pocket here my payslip, I am still under payroll,” he said.
“This is my salary, this is what I am entitled to, as is every teacher in this country,” he said – adding that “every penny of this is being diverted from my account because of the Attorney General Rossa Fanning of this government.”
In February of this year, the Attorney General was granted permission by the courts to garnish Mr Burke’s bank account to recover almost €80,000 in fines owed over contempt of court caused by attending at the school. Mr Burke slammed the move saying he was being “penalised” because he was standing up to “anti-Christian beliefs”.
Asked how he was now surviving, he said he was grateful for the support of his family, but that the state “would leave me without any clothes on my back or shoes on my feet. I have a family, I am grateful for the support of my family, those who know me know I am a person of integrity and morals.
“The government has a lot of money and gives money to a lot of different causes but its priority is to take every single penny from people who have a religious belief and a conscientious objection to something that is wrong.
He said that the move by the Attorney General sought to leave him “essentially hungry and thirsty now and barefoot walking down the street.”
However, Judge David Nolan who heard the application for the garnishee order for Mr Burke’s bank account said that it was clear that the teacher had no intention of abiding by a court order to stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School – and that he had not paid a cent of the significant fines he had accrued as a result of that refusal.
It was time, Judge Nolan said, to look at alternative methods of enforcing the court order.
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