Former school principal removed from teaching register after theft of tens of thousands of euro

A former principal of two national schools who stole tens of thousands of euro from one school and later fraudulently obtained a job as principal at the other has been removed from the register.A fitness-to-teach committee has also ruled that the man would not be eligible to apply to be admitted to the register for three years from the date of removal. The teacher received a suspended sentence in the Circuit Court in 2022 for stealing money from the first school, between 2016 and 2019, having pleaded guilty to several separate counts of forgery and theft.Paul Moroney, chairman of the fitness-to-practise committee, said on Monday the teacher created fraudulent invoices purporting to come from innocent third parties, including a children’s charity. READ MOREThe teacher told gardaí he did this “to cover his tracks”. Moroney said the teacher also withdrew money using the school bank card and purported to issue receipts for petty cash purposes, even though the money was not used for school business. He noted the teacher said he used the money he stole to pay for his “day-to-day bills”. But Moroney said some of this money was used to pay for taxis, trips, including hotels in Ireland and abroad, jewellery and a personal mobile phone.Moroney said the teacher was on sick leave from December 2018 until February 2019 when “a lack of legality” in the payments the teacher made was uncovered in documents found by a school administrator. On his return, the teacher was confronted about these documents, whereupon he left the school grounds in a distressed state. He remained on sick leave until his resignation in the autumn of 2020. After the teacher resigned, the board informed the gardaí of the allegations of forgery and theft, whereupon he was brought in for a Garda interview. The teacher, who was first registered as a teacher in 2013, was appointed principal of the second school in November 2020 after providing a fraudulent phone number for the chairperson of the first school as a referee. The teacher arranged for an unidentified person to impersonate this referee on a phone call with the chairperson of the second school, who was given a very positive reference. Moroney said the teacher was described on the call as “trustworthy, honest and very loyal”.In April 2022, the second school was informed by a parent of a child in the first school that the teacher had been charged with stealing and forgery offences. The following month, the chairperson of the board of the second school confronted the teacher after becoming aware of the fraudulent nature of the “referee” he provided.During the fitness-to-teach inquiry, the teacher accepted responsibility for his behaviour but claimed he had addiction issues, childhood trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health problems. Moroney said that the protection of the public, upholding the professional standards of the profession and maintaining the public interest in a well-regulated profession were key considerations in the committee’s ruling.Moroney said the teacher’s behaviour was of “the most egregious” kind, involving “a high level of dishonesty”, “mismanagement and misappropriation of school funds”, “an abuse of trust” and “a degree of planning”.