Tensions within the ASTI have been laid bare in the affidavit which was presented to the High Court this week by Charlie Lennon
The following are edited extracts from the affidavit presented to the High Court on Wednesday by Mr Charlie Lennon, general secretary of the ASTI since 1991. Mr Lennon obtained an injunction preventing the ASTI from proceeding with an inquiry into expenses claimed by him on ASTI business in 1999 and 2001.
In his statement, Mr Lennon describes the tensions within the union:
"I say that, by way of . . . background, that there has been some tensions in the union for some time, but in particular since early 2000 when, under the then president of the ASTI, Bernadine O'Sullivan, the union was taken out of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and rejected the national pay agreement, the PPF, and made a claim for a 30 per cent pay increase. Not only did this create tension within the ASTI, but also between the other teaching unions, the TUI and the INTO, who stayed within the national pay bargaining structure.
"Since then, a considerable number of people within the ASTI have engaged in a campaign to undermine me on the basis, in broad terms, that it is suggested that I have not been wholeheartedly committed to the union's campaign and the approach to its campaign. I have continually rejected that broad criticism, which has no foundation.
"However, there has been a general attempt to undermine me, which has manifested itself in various different ways, about which I will elaborate further insofar as same are material to these proceedings. During the last few years, in particular, I have been subjected to a persistent pattern of abuse and harassment ...
"This abuse and harassment takes the form of abusive comments, interruptions, gratuitously offensive comments, lies, barracking, repeated exaggerations, innuendo and snide comments which are made in meetings of the ASTI, and it has occurred at both standing committee meetings and meetings of the Central Executive Council (CEC) . . . The campaign to undermine me has also been waged by way of gratuitous circulation of documents criticising me to both the CEC and to the media."
Mr Lennon then describes how he wrote a letter of complaint to Mr Pat Cahill, the incoming president of the ASTI:
"Accordingly, in my letter of July 13th \ to Mr Cahill, I made it clear that ASTI . . . needed to ensure that the representatives who examined the matter [of his expenses\] were untainted by involvement in any of the abusive bullying or harassing activities which had occurred towards me over the previous three years."
Later, he continues: "Mr Cahill [who became ASTI president in August\] himself has been one of those persons involved in the campaign to undermine me.
"Around this time, I received a letter dated August 17th from the honorary treasurer, Patricia Wroe, enclosing a copy of a letter sent by her that day to the president making a complaint against me . . . This complaint was in fact an old complaint that the honorary treasurer had attempted to make against me the previous year, although the honorary treasurer, in her letter of August 17th to the president, sought to characterise it as 'a fresh complaint based on identical circumstances'."
". . . It is my genuinely-held belief that this complaint was simply reignited after August 1st in light of the honorary treasurer's view that the current president and the new vice-president [Ms Susie Hall\] are biased against me and that, in the absence of the immediate past-president [Mr P.J. Sheehy\], she believed that she had a realistic prospect of orchestrating a negative finding against me in an effort to jeopardise my employment with the defendant \.
". . . I firmly believe that both the president and vice-president [Ms Hall\] are biased against me and have a desire to see me removed as general secretary of the defendant \.
"The current president's [Mr Cahill's\] difficulties with me date back to the early 1990s, when an adverse finding was made against him in his capacity as a chairman of a branch of the ASTI. Since that time he has engaged in several bouts of bizarre and abusive correspondence with me, making all sorts of denigrating and unfounded allegations against me. He has signed numerous letters and circulars which were published by members . . . to undermine my position.
"In this correspondence he has variously accused me of defamation and bullying. I have been informed by a member of the CEC that when Mr Cahill canvassed him [the CEC member\] for a vote for the vice-presidency in 2002, Mr Cahill indicated that it was his intention, if elected, to try to achieve my dismissal as general secretary.
"In addition, he has signed letters seeking my resignation, supported votes of no confidence in me and supported reviews of my performance as general secretary."
Mr Lennon continues: "I also made the point that the treasurer had clearly been motivated with ill-feeling against me prior to her election as treasurer. She was the leading member of a group of people who sought to provide misleading and inaccurate information to ASTI members which, in fulfilment of my obligations as general secretary, I had to prevent . . ."
Mr Lennon goes on to refer to his health in recent times: "I should point out that by this time [early this month\] I was beginning to suffer symptoms of vertigo, and I attended my doctor on Thursday September 4th. He advised me to take Friday off work and he prescribed medication for the vertigo."
Later he says: "I have made specific allegations of bias against the president and vice-president, and none of these have been specifically dealt with save by way of general counter-assertion.
"If the investigation [being conducted by the ASTI president and vice-president\] is allowed to proceed, it will inevitably lead to a report being made to the standing committee which is likely to recommend disciplinary action against me, up to possibly dismissal . . .
"The matter has now become urgent by virtue of a letter I received, dated September 22nd, from the president, informing me that both he and the vice-president intend to make a report to the standing committee of the defendant this Friday, September 26th.
"If a report is presented to the standing committee, it will inevitably be leaked to the media, as has happened with a huge number of previous documentation supplied to the standing committee.
"I say that this will lead to irretrievable damage to my reputation . . .
"I am quite prepared to deal with the spurious allegations being made by the honorary treasurer provided same are put before any independent review person or group.
"On the other hand, if the president, vice-president and honorary treasurer are allowed to proceed with their current apparent intended course of action, it is likely to lead to irreparable damage to my reputation and possibly deprive me of my livelihood."