Convicted serial sex abuser Bill Kenneally has died in prison aged 75.
His death comes just over a week after the publication of a report on the response by State agencies to his abuse of a boy in Waterford in the 1980s.
The former sports coach was 10 years into an 18½-year sentence for the sexual assault of 15 teenagers in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s and had been suffering ill health in recent weeks.
Kenneally, who had been seriously ill for some time, died on in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise around 3.30am on Thursday morning. He had spent much of the last year in the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise as he suffered very poor health including blood pressure issues and diabetes.
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Earlier this year, in February, he underwent surgery to have one of his legs amputated below the knee due to health complications from his diabetes and he had remained in hospital. But late last week he was transferred back to the prison where he received palliative care on the G1 landing.
A commission of investigation into complaints against Kenneally found a serious dereliction of duty by senior Garda officers when they learned he sexually abused a boy in 1987.
Judge Michael White, who chaired the South East Commission of Investigation , examined the response by the Garda and the South Eastern Health Board to a report in 1987 that Kenneally – a member of a prominent Fianna Fáil political family in Waterford – was abusing pubescent boys.
White also criticised the health board for failing to follow through on complaints that could have led to Kenneally being caught much sooner.
In his report, White noted: “There is no evidence of widespread collusion that would indicate any finding by the commission of State collusion and/or conspiracy, which is not to underestimate in any way the seriousness of the dereliction of duty in the original investigation in 1987/1988.”
An accountant, Kenneally, who lived at Laragh, Summerville Avenue in Waterford city, was a serial abuse of pubescent boys whom he befriended through basketball, casual games of soccer, a local tennis club in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s.
White described him as a risk to young boys in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Bill Kenneally was a predatory sexual abuser operating in Waterford city and its environs. He had an intense sexual attraction to pubescent boys in early adolescence described as hebephilia rather than paedophilia,” observed White of Kenneally, who testified before the commission in March 2024.
Kenneally was jailed for 14 years and two months at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court on February 19th, 2016 for the indecent assault of 10 boys. He was jailed for a further four years and six months on May 22nd, 2023, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for the indecent assault of five other boys.
White said Kenneally’s crimes had “a lifelong impact on the victims and their families”.
Noting that Kenneally was not brought to justice until a formal complaint was made by one of his victims, Jason Clancy, in December 2012, White said “his crimes were cruel and exploitative. He was intelligent and manipulative and an expert at grooming children by developing trust and affection.”
But White noted Kenneally also used fear to exploit his victims. “He photographed many of the boys with a Polaroid camera which could instantly develop photos of them in compromising positions. He retained possession of these photos ... [in an] effective blackmail of the boys to preserve silence.
“He regularly used restraints including handcuffs and builder’s twine. He used alcohol, money and gifts in grooming and in the commission of offences. Many of these boys had never consumed alcohol before being introduced to it by Bill Kenneally.”
The commission heard evidence from the senior investigative officer on the case between 2012 and 2018, Chief Supt Anthony Pettit, that gardaí had taken statements from 23 men, alleging that they had been sexually abused as minors by Kenneally.
Pettit said two other men made statements alleging activity that could be described as grooming while gardaí identified another 13 men who had socialised with Kenneally as minors. All 13 declined to make statements, but gardaí believed there was prima facie evidence he had abused four others.
White noted that from an analysis of complaints made to gardaí from 2012 onwards, Kenneally’s targeting of boys for abuse was intense during the period from 1978 to 1987, with some of the activity clearly observable.
This included Kenneally behaving inappropriately in changing rooms and showers when boys he was coaching in basketball were showering and changing, while he also used to take young boys to fast-food restaurants and for spins in his car.
He regularly provided alcohol for youths to drink and he kept alcohol in the boot of his car while he regularly invited boys to his own home when his parents were aware and played pornographic tapes for them and gave them alcohol.
Kenneally was a member of the influential Kenneally political dynasty in Waterford - his grandfather William Kenneally was a Fianna Fáil TD for Waterford from 1952 until 1957 while his son, Billy Kenneally snr, Kenneally’s uncle, was a TD from 1965 until 1981.
Billy Kenneally’s son Brendan, the abuser’s cousin, was a TD in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and was criticised by White in his report for not notifying the authorities of his cousin’s abuse after he confirmed to the investigation that his father told him in 2001 of his cousin’s abuse in 1987 and 1988.
Brendan Kenneally could have reported the matter to Child protection services of the South Eastern Health Board and asked them to carry out a risk assessment on his cousin when he learned of the abuse in 2001, said White of the now retired TD.
“He should have spoken to Bill Kenneally and advised him to resign from Waterford Viking basketball club and he should have never allowed him to continue to canvass and act as a tallyman for him or the Fianna Fáil party.”
Although Kenneally pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of each of the 15 boys he was accused of abusing, he never testified at either of the trials.
He appeared to show little remorse when he finally spoke about his abuse at the commission in March 2024.
Kenneally began his testimony by expressing his concerns about the commission and its failure to provide him with copies of legislation he had requested and its refusal to allow him to be present when testimony from his victims was given in private session.
He was combative when he was questioned by barristers for the commission and the victims.
When barrister Barra McGrory, representing seven of his victims, put it to Kenneally that he had continued to abuse after 1987, he replied ‘Did I? Did I?’”
He went on to claim that his second trial, where he pleaded guilty to sample counts covering up until 1990, was not fair.
He insisted he didn’t do “anything criminal” after December 1987, and when McGrory put it to him that he continued “doing the sort of thing” he did, Kenneally replied: “I believe not with any boy below the age of consent.”
When asked if he supplied to alcohol to teenagers aged 13 and 14, Kenneally replied: “Is that a criminal offence?” When it was put to him that he had given them alcohol to get them to co-operate with what he wanted them to do, he said “co-operation insinuates consensual”.
At one stage, when he was asked by his own counsel, John Peart about his sexual “predilections”, Kenneally described himself as an “ephebophile” - which is defined as an older adult who is sexually attracted to adolescent - and he chuckled.
The Government is expected to offer a State apology to the victims.
The Irish Prison Service has confirmed there was a death of a person in custody at Midlands Prison.
It said all deaths in custody “are investigated by the Irish Prison Service, the Inspector of Prisons and An Garda Síochána, where circumstances warrant”.
The cause of death will be determined by the Coroner’s Office, and next of kin have been informed.
