Donegal controversy still simmers in split staffroom

When Jack Marrinan, facilitator in a dispute between the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the board of management of Carndonagh Community School, Co Donegal, presented his final report last October, many people believed that the school's years of turmoil were finally over.

The Republic's largest second-level school has been a centre of controversy for six years. Brian Mullins has been principal since 1991. At the heart of the dispute is the concern of some teachers and erstwhile members of the board of management about the lack of transparency in aspects of the school's financial management. There are concerns, too, that in the past, student numbers were inflated and that the board has been given insufficient information on these issues.

Anyone hoping for an end of the affair was to be disappointed. In January, ex-officers of the TUI's Carndonagh branch weighed in with a feisty response to the Marrinan report and Joe Higgins has tabled Dail questions. The TUI is calling for a further investigation. None of this should be interpreted as a reflection on the work of Marrinan, respected former general secretary of the Garda Representative Association. He was brought in to deal with an industrial-relations issue only - when 15 TUI members, all teachers of practical subjects at Carndonagh, voted to strike. They were demanding an independent inquiry into the management of the school, in view of both the downgrading of practical subjects at the school and what they said was harassment and victimisation of TUI officers. According to Marrinan, he understood his role to be as facilitator, not investigator.

The struggle has divided teachers in the 1,500-pupil school on the Inishowen peninsula. Life in the staffroom is described as "hellish" by teachers on both sides who have spoken to E&L but asked not to be named. Some 15 teachers from the school have rung E&L to declare their support for Mullins.

The dispute goes back to 1994, when a TUI member of the board of management raised questions about how privately raised school funds were managed. In 1995, Brian Mullins's explanation that pupil numbers for the school year 1994-95 had been mistakenly overstated by 35 was accepted by the Department. Branch officers of the TUI said numbers had been overstated over a number of years and that in 1993-94, for example, they were overstated by as much as 115.

If true, it meant that the school was receiving more public finding than it was entitled to. When a Department official examined the roll books for 1994-95, he discovered a discrepancy of only two pupils. A later examination in 1996, however, identified 85 students who enrolled for the first year of the senior cycle in September 1993 but who did not return for the second year in 1994.

Mullins conceded he was unable to stand over some of the names on the school records for the period. The official concluded there was no reliable way of establishing student numbers before 199495, but said he had found no evidence to suggest that the overstatement had been engineered. The same official also reported being impressed by the smooth running of the huge school. Since mid-1994, all bank accounts relating to the school have been held in the school's name. Previously, sports and bookshop bank accounts were in the principal's name.

"Money was moved around regularly to avail of high interest rates or other special deals being offered by banks or building societies and that practice was continued when the present principal took over," the report states. "There were no detailed records held for the various activities carried out and no bank reconciliations were performed for the period between August 1991 and the summer of 1994," it continues. An appendix to the report shows that the school held a sterling account at the Bank of Ireland in Derry.

Teachers who support Mullins point out that in the early 1990s, many other schools operated along similar lines: schools feared that the Department would discover the extent of their fundraising achievements and penalise them financially.

"Principals are given no financial training," says a teacher. "He came to a school of over 1,100 pupils and one school secretary. The Department expected too much."

In his report, Marrinan notes evidence of undisguised hostility towards Mullins, who "can be direct of manner and sometimes find it difficult to deal with a teacher who is perceived by him to challenge his authority or to challenge his approach to school management or related issues in which they have a mutual interest".

Marrinan's report concluded that "notwithstanding the innuendo that has been a feature of this dispute with the BoM, full audits of the school by the Department's Internal Audit Unit, as well as visits to the school by officials of the Department in relation to administrative and financial matters which followed the original complaints, did not disclose any impropriety or inappropriate personal gain on anybody's part nor were there any specific allegations in that regard". And he noted that there was no evidence "to suggest that the overstatement (of numbers) was engineered to secure additional financial or teaching resources from the Department or for personal gain".

The matter, Marrinan said, "should be allowed to rest there".