Enoch Burke has been paid €72,000 for teaching role since his suspension 18 months ago

Sacked schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been paid around €72,000 by the Department of Education since being suspended in August 2022.

The High Court has heard Burke is still on administrative leave and being paid, despite not working for the past year and a half, during which time he has spent 281 days in prison for contempt of court.

He is still in receipt of his salary while appealing against the decision by the board of management of Wilson’s Hospital School to dismiss him in January last year.

The appeal hearing has been delayed as a result of Burke’s unsuccessful legal challenge to the composition of the appeals panel, and it remains unclear when it will take place.

The fact Burke remains on the payroll emerged during a hearing where the court reviewed his ongoing detention for contempt of court over repeated breaches of an order restraining him from the premises of the Co Westmeath school.

The teacher of history and German, who comes from a well-known family of evangelical Christians, came into conflict with school management in 2022 when he publicly challenged, on religious grounds, a request that staff call a transgender student by a new name and they/them pronouns.

Burke previously refused to divulge his salary in court proceedings linked to his dispute with the school, but ­lawyers for its board of management last year estimated it was in the region of €48,000 a year before tax.

Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said the current position was “extremely unsatisfactory”.

“It is a situation where appropriately under the rules which govern the dismissal process, Mr Burke is being paid his salary,” the judge said.

“But there is also a situation where the State is incurring the costs of his imprisonment.”

The average cost of a prison space is around €84,000 a year.

The judge also said Burke had not yet paid costs orders against him arising from various legal hearings and had not paid fines imposed last year by another High Court judge, Mr Justice Brian O’Moore.

Mr Justice Sanfey returned Burke to Mountjoy Prison yesterday after the teacher refused to give an undertaking to comply with a permanent injunction granted to the school last July by Mr Justice Alexander Owens.

But there are signs the court may consider options other than imprisonment when Burke’s incarceration is again reviewed on March 22.

Under Ireland’s civil contempt regime, three options are open to the court to coerce an individual to comply with a court order. These are imprisonment, imposing fines and the sequestration of assets. Mr Justice O’Moore previously released Burke from prison shortly before Christmas in 2022 and later imposed fines of €700 a day on him. Around €23,800 in fines were “crystallised” by the court last March.

Mr Justice Sanfey said it appeared Mr Justice O’Moore had been inviting an application from the board of management for the sequestration of Burke’s assets.

However, the board did not make any such application at the time.

Mr Justice Sanfey said he wanted to have evidence before him at the next review hearing “in relation to the extent to which alternatives to imprisonment have been approached by the school or what consideration there has been to pursuing those options”.

The apparent search for another solution to deter Burke from going to the school in defiance of a court order comes after he again steadfastly refused to give an undertaking to comply.

It was the third such review hearing since Burke’s most recent period of ­incarceration began on September 8 last year. He has spent 173 days in prison since then.

The teacher previously spent 108 days in prison in 2022, also for contempt of court. During that period he also rejected several opportunities to purge his contempt.

Extending Burke’s incarceration yesterday, Mr Justice Sanfey said he was doing so “with regret” as the teacher’s attitude had left the court with “very little option”.

As has been his practice in previous review hearings, Burke used his court time to air grievances with the board of management, a report by a former principal that led to his suspension, and rulings made by other judges.

Burke described the urgings of Mr Justice Sanfey that he abide by the court order as “an evil request”.

He also accused other judges of telling “lies”.

The teacher claimed the judge’s ­request for submissions from the board on alternatives to imprisonment was “making a mockery” of him and submissions he had made.

“I am begging the court to wash its hands of it today and to acknowledge the truth,” he said.

Mr Justice Sanfey repeatedly told Burke he, the judge, was “not a court of appeal” and not there to review rulings made by other judges.

“The only function I have here ­today is to assess your disobedience in relation to the order of Mr Justice Owens,” he said.

At one stage, the judge warned the teacher: “You have accused people of lying. You have accused my stance of being evil. Watch your language, Mr Burke.”

Burke’s parents Sean and Martina and siblings, Ammi and Isaac, stood outside the courtroom during the hearing.

They were excluded by order of the judge following a series of previous incidents in which they disrupted proceedings.

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