The judge, in confirming the sanction, said the key mitigating factor in the case was the teacher’s gambling addiction.

An inquiry panel of the Teaching Council imposed the sanction on the teacher after a fitness-to-teach inquiry found that he had been convicted by a Circuit Court of an offence triable on indictment, which also impacted on his fitness to teach.

In an email to the regulatory body last July in response to the inquiry’s findings, the principal claimed there was “not much left for the Teaching Council to take from me.”

The man said that after gardaí arrested and released him on foot of the allegations, he felt what had happened to him over the allegations was "horrific"