A HIGH COURT judge has described comments made by Enoch Burke in his attempt to halt the hearing of his appeal against dismissal from his job as “utterly without foundation” and being borderline “contempt”.

Mr Justice Conor Dignam made the remarks after the Co Mayo teacher raised concerns about events at the end of a hearing where Burke challenged the presence of a member of a Disciplinary Appeals Panel for his employer Wilson’s Hospital School. 

The panel was due to hear his bid to overturn last January’s decision by the school to terminate his employment.

Judgement is pending in that application however Burke, who addressed today’s vacation sitting of the court via video-link, said that he was concerned that the court would consider using a transcript of last month’s hearing as part of its deliberations in that matter.

Burke said he did not know in advance of the hearing that a transcript had been requested by lawyers acting for the panel, and he had not seen a copy of it.

He said it was wrong for the court to use the transcript, which he claimed amounted to a “private arrangement.”

He also expressed his strong opposition over the use of the transcript and over what he claimed was a comment by the judge to the panel’s lawyer at the end of the hearing regarding the use of transcript.

He added that the court should use the Digital Audio Recording rather than the transcript.

In reply to Burke’s complaints, the panel’s barrister Hugh McDowell said that one side having a stenographer in proceedings and supplying the court with a transcript of the hearing was a perfectly normal arrangement, adding there is plenty of law to support that contention.

Rejecting Burke’s complaints, counsel said that following the hearing his side had offered to share the transcript with Burke, if he was prepared to pay half of the €2,400 costs.

That offer was not taken up, McDowell said. He added that in order to ease matters, the disciplinary panel was now prepared to provide Burke with a copy of the transcript for no fee.

After considering submissions from both sides Mr Justice Dignam said that he did not need to use the transcript of the hearing.

The judge said that his own notes of those proceedings were adequate. 

He would be basing his decision on those notes, the judge added.

In what was at times a tetchy exchange involving the court and the teacher, the judge, who at one stage warned Burke “not to interrupt” him, said that at all times during last month’s hearing the matter was conducted in open court.

He went to describe Burke’s remarks as being utterly without foundation, lacking in substances and were on the verge of being contemptuous.

In reply, Burke said that the judge’s comments about his submissions were “outrageous”.

Burke’s dismissal from Wilson’s Hospital has been stayed pending the appeal. 

The teacher claims Kieran Christie, general secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) should be excluded, or recuse himself, from the appeals panel because he has supported the transgender ideology since 2016.

In his action against the panel, Burke also seeks a declaration that the inclusion of Christie was unfair, unreasonable and unlawful.

Christie denies the claims and argues that Burke has wrongly based his claim of bias from the fact that Christie has accepted the law of the land on gender recognition.

Lawyers for the appeals panel claim that Burke failed to show there has been any statement made by Christie that would demonstrate prejudice, hostility or dislike or that any position taken by ASTI would effectively decide the appeal.