THE MINISTER for Education has been restrained by the High Court from sacking a school principal from her position at Kilkenny City Vocational School on the grounds she is “unfit for office”.
Barrister Ercus Stewart SC told the court yesterday that Catherine McSorley, of Annamult, Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny, had time and time again been forced, often in court, to vindicate her decisions and good name and character over the past eight years.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy granted Ms McSorley an interim injunction against the Minister and Co Kilkenny Vocational Education Committee restraining both from terminating her employment or stopping her salary and benefits from next Thursday, September 1st.
In an ex-parte (in the absence of the other side) application, the judge also granted her leave to bring judicial review proceedings challenging a ministerial order directing her dismissal and seeking declarations relating to her position and inquiries into her performance as principal.
Mr Stewart said that in 2006, then minister for education Mary Hanafin appointed Torlach O’Connor, a retired assistant chief inspector, to carry out an inquiry into Ms McSorley’s performance.
The terms of reference of the inquiry were broadly drafted to include various allegations made, many in the media, regarding the management of the school, which had been the subject of four previous investigations.
Ms Hanafin had specifically ordered an investigation into the organisation and administration of the school in the area of human resource management, the alleged failure of Ms McSorley to apply the school’s disciplinary policy, and her alleged engagement in bullying staff members.
Mr Stewart said not one of these allegations, nor others of payments by Ms McSorley to students to attend the school and of mismanagement of school funds, was upheld by Mr O’Connor in an interim report. “The inquiry did provide a long-awaited opportunity for Ms McSorley to be conclusively and finally exonerated in relation to painful and distressing allegations which had been left unresolved for many years,” Mr Stewart said.