The judge in the trial of a former school principal who has pleaded not guilty to a total of 34 charges of theft and false accounting has directed the jury to find the accused not guilty on the first seven charges.
Judge Francis Comerford told the jury in the trial of Frank Chambers that there is no basis on which they could bring in a conviction on those charges.
The seven charges relate to allegations of false accounting. The remaining charges before the jury include one count of false accounting and 26 charges of theft.
Mr Chambers, who is 58, was the principal at Roscommon Community College and gave evidence in the trial this afternoon.
He told the court that he trained as a primary school teacher in London and worked there and in Dublin before moving to the west of Ireland.
He was a Youth Reach co-ordinator in Ballaghadereen in Roscommon before being appointed in 2004 as principal of Roscommon Community College, which was then known as Roscommon Vocational School.
Mr Chambers, of Carnacregg, Moylough, Co Galway, said there were a large amount of bank accounts in the school when he took up his post and he amalgamated them into one.
He said the money from the canteen would have gone to the safe, some would have been used around the school and some would have been lodged to the VEC.
The money that went to the VEC, he said, would come back to the school.
An audit related to the school meals programme was carried out in 2012 by the Department of Social Protection and he said it was made clear to the auditor that the children were charged for food.
Mr Chambers asked the auditor about the column in the application form for the scheme asking about any other income, and he was told it was for statutory funding only.
"He was very clear on that so I put in No," Mr Chambers said.
With the amalgamation of VECs and change to ETBs, Mr Chambers said that he contacted the finance officer he used to deal with in the VEC to enquire where to send money and she did not know where he should lodge it so he kept it in the safe.
He said he used the money in the safe to support things teachers were engaged in.
Mr Chambers told the court that he never received any financial training, any directions as to what was to happen to the monies, or what could or could not be purchased.
The former principal said that as the school grew there were increasing demands for money.
He said they were only funded based on the numbers they had in the previous year. The court has heard that pupil numbers in the school grew from about 70 pupils when he joined in 2004 to 427 in 2017.
Mr Chambers told the court that money from the canteen was used in part for the school musical "which was a massive draw on money"; to pay referees; hiring buses to bring pupils to a local hall or astroturf because the school did not have those facilities; Christmas decorations; classroom decorations for open-day; hire of a photographer for the annual school brochure.
He said it was also used to buy equipment for the school like lockers, more modern tables and chairs, teachers chairs, a hotplate, kettles and microwaves.
The cash was also used to top-up payments to teachers for after-school study and for extra work such as running the book rental scheme.
He said he gave the school attendant, Patricia Byrne, money for all the extra hours she put in.
Ms Byrne denied she had received any money from Mr Chambers.
"I was juggling the money around because there was never enough money in the school account or the checking account," Mr Chambers told the court.
He also said he had used money to buy clothes or shoes for children and said he made "no apology for spending money for children in need. I didn't want anyone in school to feel humiliated."
In relation to a green book which Ms Byrne said she used to record the income of the school canteen, Mr Chambers denied her allegation that he told her he had burned it.
Mr Chambers said that Ms Byrne asked him to mind the book while she was on sick leave.
He said he left it on his desk and other things got piled on top of it and when extensive renovations were being carried out on the school he "took lock, stock and barrel on my desk and put it in the bookstore."
He said he never saw the book again. When he came back after the renovations were done, "there were files, books and bits all over the place" and the book was the last thing on his mind.
Ms Byrne, in her evidence, said the canteen was taking in between €800 and €1,000 a week but Mr Chambers said he did not count what was coming in.
"It would go from my drawer to my safe, I didn't have time to count it," but he said the school had only a ten minute break and a lunchtime when most children, if they can, get out of school will leave so he did not believe Ms Byrne on that.
Mr Chambers said the money would get used up quickly.
"I thought I was allowed to do it, everyone knew about it. Money can't come in the way of a kid's education and I used the money for that reason," he said.
The trial continues on Monday.
