Nun vetoed unmarried mother’s promotion

A NUN blocked the promotion of a teacher who previously had a child outside of marriage, a whistleblower has revealed.

The nun, who was principal at a school run by Catholic education trust Ceist, blocked the teacher from securing the position of deputy principal, despite the candidate being the best person for the job.

The woman was the only teacher from the school to apply for the job, and was the leading contender after two rounds of interviews and psychological type testing.

But the nun claimed the teacher’s ‘lifestyle did not reflect the standards of the school and would send out the wrong message to the young female students’, the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed.

The claim, which relates to an incident within the past six years, was made by a whistleblower in a protective disclosure to the Department of Education, and is under investigation.

At a Workplace Relations Commission hearing, Ceist – which is involved in running 110 schools throughout the country – agreed that the woman had been discriminated against, according to a report in the newspaper yesterday.

In their submission, the whistleblower outlines the sequence of events which led to the teacher allegedly being disqualified from being appointed deputy principal at the school. The whistleblower, who sat on the selection committee for the position, states: ‘After all shortlisted candidates had been interviewed, the selection committee discussed the relevant merits of each one. Two candidates emerged as leading contenders for the appointment. One was an external candidate and the other was from the school staff.’

But in contravention of normal procedure, a second round of interviews was suggested, as well as psychometric testing.

After a second round of interviews, the woman, as well as the external candidate, emerged again as the top two contenders.

But, the whistleblower states: ‘At this point, I was asked to step outside the room by the chairperson and informed that [named nun who was the school principal] would not countenance the appointment of the internal candidate, given that she had had a baby out of wedlock some number of years earlier.

‘I cautioned the chairperson that we could not, under equality legislation, allow this to be a consideration in our deliberations. The chair continued to assert that [same named nun] felt this candidate’s “lifestyle did not reflect the standards of the school and would send out the wrong message to the young female students”.’

Meanwhile, the whistleblower also claimed another Ceist school scuppered the promotion of a leading candidate because he was Protestant.

Both schools declined to comment, while the Department of Education told the IMoS that its officials were reviewing the claims.

‘Sends out the wrong message’