The Court of Appeal has dismissed an anonymised teacher’s appeal over the Teaching Council of Ireland’s decision to notify the National Vetting Bureau of a concern relating to him.
The appeal concerned whether the Council had acted “as soon as may be” under section 19 of the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012. The court found no error in the High Court’s conclusion that the Council complied with that requirement.
The dispute followed an incident involving a 19-year-old student on the night of 28 to 29 November 2016. The student told gardaí that he and the teacher had been drinking and that the teacher tried to remove his tracksuit bottoms; he left after an argument. A second student described drinking and smoking cannabis with them, and alleged the teacher had tried to groom the first student. These were accounts recorded in the judgment, not findings made by the Court of Appeal. The student did not wish to make a complaint, and gardaí assessed that no offence appeared to have been disclosed.
The teacher was suspended by the school, whose disciplinary panel later found some allegations made out and recommended dismissal for gross misconduct. The school dismissed him in December 2016. Its headmaster complained to the Teaching Council in March 2017, and the Council later pursued a separate application under section 47 of the Teaching Council Act 2001 to suspend the teacher’s registration. The teacher’s challenge to the vetting notification was dismissed by the High Court in February 2019, leading to this appeal.
The Court of Appeal said the appeal had narrowed to delay and the meaning of “as soon as may be”; allegations of bad faith and misfeasance were no longer pursued. The High Court had found that the Council’s evidence-of-character panel formed a bona fide concern on 18 June 2018, and that the Council notified the teacher of its intention to inform the Bureau by letter dated 5 July 2018. The appellate judgment said those findings were not contradicted.
The teacher argued that separate regulatory, investigation and enquiry processes triggered successive duties to notify. The Court of Appeal rejected that interpretation, holding that the relevant timing obligation arose once the Council had formed a bona fide concern at the end of its investigation process. It also accepted the High Court’s consideration of the delay, including the Council’s unchallenged evidence that it sought legal advice and that students were unwilling to participate in the enquiry.
The court dismissed the appeal. It did not determine whether the Bureau should disclose information: the judgment explains that the Bureau’s chief officer makes that separate decision under the statutory scheme.