A flute teacher, Hugh Rance, just got the short end of the stick after he tried to bring attention to what he believed was some shady business going on at a state-backed music school. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) shut down his claim under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, saying his complaints didn’t count as a protected disclosure. But Hugh ain’t taking this lying down – he’s planning to appeal the ruling at the Labour Court.
Hugh spilled the tea during a hearing at the WRC last year, where he spilled the beans about how he and his colleagues were getting paid for a ton of teaching hours, even though there were a bunch of empty slots where students should’ve been. He pointed fingers at the school’s management, saying they were wasting public funds and just straight-up mismanaging the whole shebang. The drama started back in 2011 when the responsibility for recruiting new students shifted from the music teachers to the bigwigs at the Cork Education and Training Board (CETB) School of Music.
Hugh did some math and figured out that his teaching hours were about 63% empty, costing the State around €50,000 a year. He wasn’t alone – turns out 18 music teachers at the school were in the same boat, with their unutilized teaching hours ranging from 35% to a whopping 70% in one case. Hugh even fired off an email to a manager in September 2023, talking about the “serious implications of fiscal irresponsibility” and how the recruitment strategy was about as effective as a chocolate teapot. He even reached out to the big boss, Denis Leamy, at the Cork ETB, hoping to get some action on the whole mess.
But things took a turn for the worse when the email bounced back because the manager was MIA. Hugh then decided to shoot his shot with Denis, but to no avail – the chief executive said they were already aware of the vacancies and basically brushed off Hugh’s concerns. The school principal, Carol Daly, denied any mismanagement and said the school was actually on the up and up, even with the whole flute lessons not being the rave anymore post-Covid. The finance director, Enda McWeeney, looked into Hugh’s claims but said they were just bare allegations and didn’t warrant a financial audit.
In the end, the adjudication officer, Patsy Doyle, ruled that Hugh’s complaints were more of a personal beef with his manager rather than a legit protected disclosure. So, it looks like Hugh will have to keep fighting if he wants to see any changes at the school. But hey, at least he’s not giving up without a fight!
