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A teacher who claims her colleagues repeatedly addressed her by her Protestant husband’s surname and asked her when her children would have their communions has accused a Co Donegal school of discriminating against her by passing over her for a new contract.
During a hearing at the Workplace Relations Commission in Letterkenny on Monday, lawyers for the school objected to the complainant being asked whether cake sales would be “associated with Protestantism”, arguing it was a leading question.
She has also accused the chairman of the school’s board of shouting at her for taking advice from her trade union on the matter and then banning her from speaking to other staff about employment prospects there.
Aoife Cleary said she would have qualified for a permanent contract if she had been appointed without interview to a new post at Kilmacrennan National School for the 2022-23 year, in line with national policy, but was instead required to compete in an open competition. She said a former colleague was appointed to an equivalent post without interview that summer.
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Opening her complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against Kilmacrennan National School in Co Donegal at Letterkenny Courthouse, Ms Cleary’s barrister Patricia McCallum BL said her client was subject “to differential treatment in respect of the other position available. She’ll say that was either because of her age, gender or her religion”.
The complainant said she became aware towards the end of the 2021-2022 school year that there would be two vacancies for teachers because of job-sharing and maternity arrangements for four teachers. She gave evidence that the four staff in question each confirmed it to her separately.
She said the principal, John Devanney, told her on June 10th, 2022 he was appointing one of her colleagues to one of the vacancies, but would not fill the other post until “July or August” that year.
After she raised the matter with the chairman of the school board, local priest Fr Paddy Dunne, the complainant said the principal told her at a further meeting on June 14th, 2022: “Listen, you may take it that your last day at school is Friday.”
She said that when she spoke again with Fr Dunne that evening, he said: ‘You’ve been talking to the staff and the union, haven’t you?”
“I said, yes, they are my friends and I thought it was my right to speak to my union to get advice about this. He then went, in a raised voice: ‘Aoife, you’ve jumped the gun. You can’t force John’s hand.’ I think he meant that I should be quiet and not ask questions ... I was so shocked I was crying on the phone,” Ms Cleary said.
She told the tribunal that the school board would have been free to appoint her without interview for the fixed-term post in line with the relevant Department of Education circular, and that she would have built up enough service for a contract of indefinite duration if she had worked to November 2022.
However, the school went ahead and advertised the vacant post she had hoped to get that August and she failed to get through the interview process, the tribunal heard.
‘Tray bakes’
The complainant said she was married to a Protestant man and although she had used her husband’s surname, Wilkin, earlier in her career she went by Ms Cleary from the time of her qualification onward.
Despite this, however, she said colleagues were in the habit of coming into her classroom and referring to her as “Mrs Wilkin”.
“It was confusing for me and for the children,” she said.
“It was said to me by [two colleagues] together – joking – that: ‘Mrs Wilkin you’d be better served up in Trentagh selling tray bakes’,” she said of a neighbouring school under the Church of Ireland’s patronage.
Ms Cleary said the remark was made to her “at least twice, maybe three times”.
She said that at the time she had been teaching second class and preparing her pupils for the Catholic sacrament of First Holy Communion and was asked repeatedly by colleagues about when her own children would be getting First Communion.
“Most of them would have been aware [my children] were in a Church of Ireland school,” she said.
“The culture within the school was kind of this frat-boy cynical attitude. If you were not joking around you were sort of an outsider,” she said, citing a series of posts from a school staff WhatsApp group.
Ms Cleary’s discrimination claim and two more complaints under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 and the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973 are denied by the school board, which is represented by barrister Cathy McGrady BL, instructed by Lorcan Maule of Mason Hayes and Curran.
A fourth complaint by Ms Cleary under the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003 was withdrawn.
Adjudicator Emer O’Shea adjourned the hearing, which is expected to last two more days when it resumes on a future date yet to be set by the tribunal.