The Government will offer a State apology to the victims of Bill Kenneally, it emerged on Tuesday night after the publication of a report by the commission of investigation into the response to the serial child abuser’s case.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting that he believed victims were owed an apology from Government and suggested that they be offered one.
The proposal was supported by Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
The “abhorrent crimes” of Kenneally and significant issues of public concern have been raised in a landmark Commission of Investigation report on the convicted paedophile.
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Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan published the final report on Tuesday and said he will now “consider its findings”.
The head of the Commission of Investigation into complaints against the serial Waterford sex abuser found there was a serious dereliction of duty by senior Garda officers when they learned Kenneally sexually abused a boy in the late 1980s.
Retired High Court judge Michael White also criticised the South Eastern Health Board for failing to follow through on complaints of sexual abuse that could have led to him being caught much sooner.
The report also said the Law Reform Commission should be asked to give “urgent consideration” to the issue of whether there should be a new offence of “serious dereliction of duty by a public official which falls short of deliberate perversion of the course of justice”.
The report of the South East Commission of Investigation was prepared by White on foot of his inquiry into the allegations regarding the responses by various State agencies and others into reports of sexual abuse by the former basketball coach and Fianna Fáil tallyman.
Kenneally pleaded guilty in late 2015 and again in 2022 to multiple cases of child sex abuse in Waterford. A member of a well-known Fianna Fáil family, Kenneally is in jail for the abuse of 15 children between 1979 and 1990.
O’Callaghan received the final report on Monday, and told Government colleagues at a Cabinet meeting that he intended to publish it on Tuesday. The publication was also shared with victims.
“I want to acknowledge the bravery of the victims of Bill Kenneally and thank them for their perseverance and strength in seeking truth and accountability. The report I am publishing today was given yesterday to those victims who are in contact with my department via their legal representatives. I hope they and the other victims of the abhorrent crimes of Bill Kenneally will find the report to be a detailed and thorough assessment of the significant issues of public concern that arose in relation to his crimes,” O’Callaghan said.
“The work of the Commission of Investigation was complex, and I want to thank Judge White, his team and Judge Hickson for bringing this to completion and for the comprehensiveness of the investigation and the detailed recommendations which have been brought forward.
“I will now reflect on the findings of the report. It is also important that we allow the victims the time to read and consider its findings.”
The report raised questions about Irish laws and frontline services, and said the State was “historically blind to sexual abuse operating beneath the surface”.
People in “responsible positions,” including senior gardaí, a priest, a senior clergyman and a former politician, were aware of Kenneally’s sexual abuse from as early as 1987.
It said “nothing appropriate” was done until 2012, when Jason Clancy made his first formal complaint to gardaí.
The retired politician and his son, then an elected politician, and the senior clergyman had become aware in 2001 that Kenneally had continued to keep abusing children after he was warned by gardaí about his behaviour in 1987.
The final report of the Commission of Investigation into Kenneally said although the contact with An Garda Síochána in 1987 had “changed” the paedophile’s behaviour, it “did not stop his sexual abuse”.
“The difficulty of dealing with this problem historically and continuing today should not be underestimated. Those who sexually abuse children are by their nature and obsessions secretive and cunning. It was and is difficult to detect and prove. Children were silenced by the shame of it and also their inability to articulate the horrible things happening to them. On occasions when it was articulated people were not listening,” the report said.
When Clancy and four other men abused by Kenneally as boys learned he had been questioned by gardaí in 1987 about the abuse of another boy but never prosecuted, they began lobbying for a Commission of Investigation into who knew what and when.
In November 2016, Clancy and the other men presented a detailed dossier to then minister for justice Frances Fitzgerald in support of their call for an inquiry into what gardaí and the local health board knew about Kenneally in the late 1980s.
On May 30th, 2017, the then government decided to set up a Commission of Investigation after seeking legal advice from the attorney general. At that stage, a number of other men had come forward with new criminal complaints against Kenneally.
The commission heard from about 90 witnesses in both public and private hearings from November 2021 and concluded 30 months later in May 2024.
White submitted his report, which runs to more than 400 pages, to O’Callaghan in March.
