Non-working teacher cost £1/2 million over 20 years

A MEDIATOR is to be appointed to try to resolve the case of a school principal with the City of Limerick VEC who has been on full pay since 1976 in spite of not attending school for more than 20 years. The cost to the State in pay and legal costs is estimated at over £500,000.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, said yesterday it was unacceptable that the Department of Education and the VEC had taken so long to decide what to do. The cost to the State in legal fees and interest payments continued to grow daily, he told the Dail Committee on Public Accounts.

Ms Lucy Carr was suspended without pay in June, 1976, for alleged misconduct. A inquiry was held in 1977 and the Minister for Education decided in 1980 to reinstate Ms Carr.

But the school where she worked had closed and the VEC asked her to report for duty in another school. The post offered was below principal level, but at a principal's salary.

Ms Carr refused to take up the position and began legal proceedings. The case went to the High Court and then the Supreme Court, which decided in 1991 that Ms Carr was entitled to a principal's job and her full salary from the time she had been suspended.

Since then, the VEC has been pressing to terminate Ms Carr's contract of employment, but the Department has resisted this.

The VEC chief executive, Mr Muiris O Ceallaigh, said his committee was concerned at this misuse of Department funds. The Department had been told this more than once. A year ago, it had suggested a meeting between the parties, but the Department had said this was not appropriate.

Mr O Ceallaigh said Ms Carr had been suspended originally for alleged misconduct, after she refused to answer questions in the course of an administrative inquiry into her school he had carried out.

Mr Pat Burke, assistant secretary of the Department, said he believed a suspension of the teacher could be open to legal challenge. Following the Supreme Court judgment, it appeared the teacher was in a "uniquely fortified position".

The Minister had made a judgment that dismissal was not warranted. The Department's view was that it should be resolved by negotiation.

Labour TD, Mr Tommy Broughan, described the affair as an unbelievable story of bureaucratic bungling by the Department and the VEC".