A FORMER FIANNA Fáil TD has said he will provide a “very long” letter he received from his cousin Bill Kenneally, the convicted child abuser, to a State inquiry.

During further cross-examination before the Commission of Investigation this morning in Dublin, Brendan Kenneally said that he received the letter in recent years, sometime after his relative was imprisoned, but said he has never opened the letter.

He said the letter came after he met a relative at a family funeral and “made the mistake of asking” how the sex offender was doing in prison in Portlaoise.

“She obviously conveyed that to him,” he said. “He made contact with me then. He wrote a long letter to me, which I haven’t read.”

He was responding to Ray Motherway, a barrister representing two victims of former sports coach Bill Kenneally. When Motherway asked him when he was last in contact with his cousin, Brendan Kenneally said it had been 15 years.

“I’ve had no contact with him since he went into prison,” he said.

Asked by Motherway if he would provide the commission with the letter, Brendan Kenneally said he was open to doing so. 

“I’ve no problem if you want it,” he said, “I’ve kept it.”

Commission hearing

Brendan Kenneally served as a TD for Waterford in two stints ranging from 1989 to 2011 and as a Minister of State in the early 1990s.

Last May, his cousin Bill Kenneally received a four-and-a-half-year sentence for abusing five boys on unknown dates between December 1979 and March 1990. He was aged between his 20s and 40s when carrying out the abuse.

The 72-year-old accountant, from Laragh, Summerville Avenue, Waterford, had already been serving a 14-year sentence for abusing ten boys from 1984 to 1987.

The commission, sitting in the Law Library in Dublin, is examining allegations of collusion between An Garda Síochána, the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, the former South Eastern Health Board, Basketball Ireland, and unnamed “political figures”.

Survivors of his abuse believe Bill Kenneally could have been arrested and charged at a far earlier stage.

At a hearing last month, the former TD said that he did not conceal his cousin’s abuse of children to protect any “political ambitions” and that it was not a “family secret” held by members.

He insisted that while he had received details from a constituent in 2001 that his cousin had abused two boys some years earlier, he thought that “gardaí couldn’t have progressed anything with the information” about his relative’s abuse of children.

He further denied being aware of his cousin’s abuse of children in the 1980s.

Canvassing

During today’s hearing, he defended having his cousin take part in door-to-door canvasses at election for Fianna Fáil despite being aware he was a child abuser.

Motherway asked Brendan Kenneally why his cousin “continued to canvass for you” and questioned whether he was comfortable with having Bill Kenneally “knocking doors on your behalf”.

Responding, the former TD said he “didn’t realise the extent” of his cousin’s crimes against children, and added that because his canvasses were always done in pairs, there was “always” somebody else with him.

“There was always somebody next door [canvassing] and somebody at the other side as well,” Brendan Kenneally said.

Motherway suggested the stance was “at best naive”, adding that the canvasses allowed the sports coach to discover “more information of who was occupying houses” at the time of each canvass.

Mr Justice Michael White noted that a number of victims had spoken of Bill Kenneally appearing at their homes for Fianna Fáil canvasses.

Psychiatrist

Brendan Kenneally denied that his treatment of his cousin was a “case of not wanting to know”.

He also rejected claims that the psychiatrist who he asked to assess his cousin was a friend of his who he drank alongside in a local pub.

The psychiatrist, Ricky Horgan, has not yet appeared before the commission.

The commission heard that the psychiatrist was living in the same estate as Bill Kenneally at the time.

Brendan Kenneally said that he knew few psychiatrists and believed it was more appropriate to find someone he was familiar with, leading him to approach the psychiatrist and speak to him about his cousin in a number of phone calls.

This led to an assessment lasting around “15 minutes”, which the psychiatrist did for free.

Commenting on the recruitment, Mr Justice White said that the “objective reality is that a consultation for 10 or 15 minutes would have been absolutely and utterly ineffective” for assessing Bill Kenneally.

He pointed to notes from a doctor who assessed the paedophile in recent years, which documented that there were “over 200 hours of interventions” with Bill Kenneally as part of the treatment.

Mr Justice White told Brendan Kenneally that due to his “extensive experience as a TD and minister of state”, he would have been aware of controversy of non-disclosure concerning incidents of abuse.

He noted that “one government you were part of” had to contend with the scandal around child abuser Brendan Smyth, which led to the collapse of the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition government in 1994.

Kenneally was also a TD in the Fianna Fáil-led government that formed a commission of inquiry in 2000 to examine institutional abuse.

He added that through legislation introduced in 1998, the government “allowed an individual who had knowledge of abuse to report it in confidence to the Health Board without issues”.

Brendan Kenneally said he believed that his cousin’s actions were linked to members of a basketball club and so he attempted to “keep an eye on him” there with contacts in the club.

However, Mr Justice White said that it was clear that Bill Kenneally was not confined to preying on children in basketball.

He noted that he had “targetted children” who played tennis, after he “inveigled himself” into one group, while he also abused “a lot of children” who played soccer.

Continuing, the judge said Bill Kenneally preyed on one “deprived area” and would “tour a particular estate” trying to find children.

‘No reservations’

When asked by Motherway if he had ever been abused by his cousin, Brendan Kenneally said he had not.

Before learning of his cousin’s crimes, he said he would have had “no reservations” about him being around his children when they were growing up.

He also maintained that none of his children ever had any family relationship with Bill Kenneally.

He said he was not friendly with Bill Kenneally, adding that his main contact with his cousin came during election canvasses. 

Asked if he was keeping his own children “away from Bill”, Brendan Kenneally said that was not the case. 

Future hearings

Mr Justice White said Bill Kenneally himself will be the “very last witness” to be called before the hearing.

He said there are “ten to 15″ witnesses in total, including a former school principal, but admitted that it had been difficult scheduling the remaining number.

When the commission is complete, he will produce a report on its findings.