By Órla O’Donnell, RTE
Secondary school teacher Enoch Burke has been ordered to pay a total of €225,000 in fines for breaching a court order directing him to stay away from the school where he worked.
The High Court has also increased the daily fine to be paid by Mr Burke for breaching the order to €2,000.
Mr Justice David Nolan made the orders following an application by Wilson’s Hospital School to have Mr Burke arrested and jailed again for continuing to turn up at the school in breach of the injunction granted by the High Court.
Mr Burke has already spent more than 500 days in prison for contempt of court, since the case first came to court at the beginning of the school year in 2022.
The judge said he was not going to jail Mr Burke again as this would give him more publicity for his “deluded” sense of justice and he said it was “behoven” upon the school to take appropriate steps to secure its property against a trespasser.
ED: A reminder of Enoch Burke’s crime: The school board had dismissed him from his post after a dispute over his refusal to recognise a transgender student’s new identity. Despite his suspension, he continued to attend the school. An injunction was granted by a judge, preventing Burke from going to Wilson’s Hospital.