A JUDGE has ruled that a nun who lost her teaching post after her superiors withdrew her nomination was not treated unfairly by a school.
At Cork Circuit Court yesterday, Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin ruled that Sr Maria O’Sullivan got the job because she was a member of a religious order and the school, Presentation Primary in Bandon, Co Cork, did not act unfairly in replacing her.
Her nomination to the school by the religious order was withdrawn and her post was filled by another teacher.
Sr O’Sullivan, from Douglas, Cork, lost her teaching post after her superiors advised her that if she did not take a career break, her nomination to the school would be withdrawn.
Yesterday’s ruling overturns a decision made by the Employment Appeals Tribunal in September 2009 that the nun be reinstated to her teaching post.
A member of the Presentation Order, Sr O’Sullivan taught at the school from 1991 until 2006.
In July 2006, her superiors, including Sr Mary Hoare, decided it would be best for her to take a career break as the situation at the school had become stressful due to problems with the principal and other staff members.
“I felt I was being made a scapegoat for the trouble in the school, I felt it was an injustice to me as a person. “I was a very good teacher and I felt my good name was at stake,” she said yesterday in court.
When she realised her teaching post had been filled by a substitute teacher, she approached the principal. “I went to the principal who laughed in my face. She said ‘you have no teaching job in this school’,” Sr O’Sullivan said.
She then took her case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal and won.
The school appealed that decision and yesterday in court the judge said the school had not acted unfairly. He said the manner in which she obtained her teaching post was similar to a gift from her religious order; she did not go through the normal interview process as a lay teacher would have had to. “She did not face competition for her position. It was a gift from her superiors,” he said.
The judge said it was a highly unusual case concerning a tiny section of the community.
The school’s decision to replace Sr O’Sullivan was “entirely within the agreements made” between the board of management, the Presentation Order and the trustees of the school, he said.
“It is a unique system but that is what is provided for within these rules,” Judge Ó Donnabháin said.
Refusing to make an order for costs, he said that if legal proceedings are entered into, you “must accept the rules that apply”.