THE DEPARTMENT OF Education has contributed more than €4,000 to allow Wilson’s Hospital School to pay for security to stop Enoch Burke from trespassing on its grounds.

The High Court heard today that the department had agreed to pay 50% of the cost of security at the school until December, on foot of a request from Wilson’s for financial assistance in recent weeks.

The school hired a security guard in September when Burke resumed his attendance at the school after the new term began, despite a court injunction that has ordered him to stay away.

The former teacher is currently being fined €2,000 for every day that he attends the school in defiance of the court order.

However, judge Brian Cregan has proposed to reduce Burke’s fines to cover the cost of security hired to keep him away.

The judge suggested this in a previous hearing of the case when he questioned whether the accumulated cost of fines owed by Burke was proportionate. 

The cost to Wilson’s of employing a security guard is €763 a week, which barrister Rosemary Mallon (acting on behalf of the school) told the court is a cost that is “very difficult for the school”.

Today, Mallon read out correspondence from the department to the school in which an official told Wilson’s that it would pay €4,440 for the cost of security for 9 weeks until December in light of the “exceptional circumstances”.

The official also said the department would “keep the situation under review”.

Fines owed

Burke was deemed to have accrued €225,000 in fines owed to the State on 4 September, a figure which has increased in the weeks since because he has continued to attend the school.

The court heard today that more than €60,000 of this has already been paid.

Around €40,000 was emptied from Burke’s personal bank account on foot of an order made by the High Court earlier this year, while €22,416 has also been taken from money that continues to be paid to him by the Department of Education.

Burke claimed in court this afternoon that it was “shameful” that he was being “robbed of my money, my livelihood and my salary” and that the fines were “punitive, retributive and performative”.

During the hearing, he repeatedly argued against the fines and the injunction requiring him to stay away from the school by citing a Court of Appeal ruling from earlier this year.

He claimed this ruling said a disciplinary appeal panel, which will examine the grounds of his suspension from Wilson’s, was required in the first instance to analyse whether it was fair to ask him to use a transgender pupil’s preferred pronouns.

Burke was asked several times by judge Brian Cregan why he did not appeal the initial injunction made by another High Court judge, Alexander Owens, in 2023.

Burke repeatedly referred to the Court of Appeal ruling and hit out at judge Cregan by asking why he would not refer to the order of a superior court.

Rosemary Mallon, on behalf of Wilson’s, argued in response to Burke that the Court of Appeal did not find Owens’ initial judgment invalid.

Towards the end of the hearing, the judge asked Burke whether he would purge his contempt; when he would not, he asked where Burke’s case against Wilson’s would end?

“This has to be taking an enormous toll on you, Mr Burke, personally,” the judge said.

“You have lost your position subject to an appeal, you have spent 500 days in prison, you have fines racked up to €225,000.”

Burke attended the court hearing alongside six members of his family, including his brother Isaac, who was removed from court after he refused to stop interrupting proceedings.

Judge Cregan told Isaac Burke that he had no right to an audience in the court, and ordered gardaí to remove him.

The judge left the courtroom while Isaac Burke was removed from the court by six gardaí, during which his mother Martina shouted “lies lies lies, this court is full of lies”.

The judge also twice threatened to remove Enoch Burke’s father Sean, after he accused Mallon of “lying” about an affidavit that was submitted to the court in recent weeks.

At one point this afternoon, after Martina Burke and her daughter Ammi began interrupting proceedings again, the judge hit out at the family for their behaviour.

“I don’t know why you and members of your family feel they can come in here and shout at me,” he said.

“There are no other litigants who come in here and behave as your family do. It is your conduct that is disgraceful.”