The High Court has refused an application by a 12-year-old Irish dancer for an interim injunction that would have allowed her to compete before the six-month waiting period following a change of teacher had elapsed.
The application concerned rule 3.1.4 of An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha, which generally prevents a pupil who moves from one registered teacher to another from entering a registered competition for six months. The rule provides exceptions, including where a teacher dies or is deregistered, there is a significant change of residence, or an exemption is granted for extreme circumstances.
The dancer’s mother, who is also a registered teacher, applied for an exemption under the extreme-circumstances provision after the child’s former teacher told her in July 2017 that the child could no longer attend the class. The mother registered the child as her own pupil. A 17-member subcommittee unanimously refused the exemption application.
The family sought to have the child compete in the Southern England Oireachtas in November 2017, with the aim of defending her world championship placing from March 2018. The mother also raised a possible effect on the child’s qualification for the 2019 championship.
The child’s counsel argued that payment for enrolment relied on a promise that a pupil of a registered teacher could compete. The organisation disputed that account. Justice Tony O’Connor said the alleged issue was tentative, citing the lack of specific evidence that website material had induced the child to enrol, the child’s inability to form a contract in the circumstances described, and the absence of an explanation for why the mother had not brought proceedings in her own name. The judge said a trial could still consider the claim.
The court also considered whether the rules were disciplinary in nature. Justice O’Connor said the rules were clear and applied equally on their face, and that the interim application was not the stage to decide their merits in relation to child welfare. He stressed that the court could not finally determine factual disputes on affidavit evidence at this stage.
The judge weighed the potential loss to the child against the effect an injunction could have on the organisation’s rules and competitions. If the child competed and later lost at a full hearing, her placing might have to be reviewed and another child could be indirectly deprived of a place. The court refused the relief sought in the notice of motion issued on 25 October 2017. The judgment did not determine the underlying claims, which the judge said could proceed to a plenary hearing.