A PACKED ROOM of survivors of sexual abuse and their families came face-to-face this week with the man who perpetrated a litany of crimes against them.
Bill Kenneally was brought to Dublin city centre from the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise, where he has been jailed since 2016, to appear before the State inquiry formed to investigate how State agencies and other organisations responded to complaints about the sports coach over the past 40 years.
Upon entering the hearing in the Law Library on Tuesday, the 73-year-old scanned the back of the room. When he began giving evidence, he was extraordinarily defiant when talking about his crimes against the men present.
Despite his convictions, he claimed that grooming accusations against him were “exaggerated”, argued elsewhere that the abuse was “consensual” and later questioned “why it took 30 years” for some victims to come forward.
It caused outrage among survivors and their families, while some of Kenneally’s outlandish claims drew laughter from survivors.
The chairman, retired High Court judge Michael White, intervened at one point, warning Kenneally that he was turning the hearing “into a bit of a circus” and later reminded him that he had, in fact, pleaded guilty to incidents he was now asserting little familiarity with.
Kenneally’s voice carried across the room as he set out why, as a “citizen of Ireland”, he had been wronged by authorities when he was sentenced in 2016 for abusing 10 boys.
Kenneally said he would likely have served 17 months for the offences if he had been brought to court in the late 1980s after he confessed to gardaí that he assaulted six youths.
The question of why Kenneally wasn’t brought to court in the late 1980s is a key reason for the inquiry.
As explained by White, the commission’s job is not to examine the crimes themselves, but how child abuse complaints were handled and whether more could have been done to bring Kenneally to justice sooner.
It was formed in 2018 and has seen dozens of witnesses since. They have included gardaí, politicians, HSE representatives and representatives of Basketball Ireland.
The Kenneally family: Members of the family held seats in national and local politics from the 1950s until the 2010s. They made their livings in transport originally – through a bus company older than the State, managing to hold the routes for Waterford after CIE was formed in the 1930s. They later bought several pubs in Waterford city.
The first member of the family to win a Dáil seat was William Kenneally in 1952. He retained the seat during the 1954 General Election, topping the poll with 7,777 votes – a number that would play a significant role in the family’s folklore and was later incorporated into his grandson Bill Kenneally’s abuse of his victims.
Billy Kenneally: William’s son who won a Dáil seat for the first time in 1965. He held it until the 1980s, later maintaining a seat on Waterford City Council. He arranged for his nephew Bill to visit gardaí – namely Sean Cashman and PJ Hayes – in 1987.
Brendan Kenneally: Son of Billy and grandson of William, he is also a former Fianna Fáil TD and Minister of State. Now aged in his 60s, he is a first cousin of Bill Kenneally and has told the inquiry that he made arrangements for his relative to receive psychiatric treatment when he learned, in 2002, of allegations that he had abused children.
Fr John Shine: A priest with the honorary role of monsignor, making him an assistant to the bishop of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. He was Bill Kenneally’s uncle via his mother’s side of the family.
Jason Clancy: A survivor of Kenneally’s abuse who led the campaign for the forming of the commission. He has been ever present at the inquiry, often accompanied by other survivors, including, but not limited to, Colin Power, Barry Murphy, Paul Walsh and Kevin Keating. A number of other survivors have not waived their right to anonymity.
Mr Justice Michael White: The retired High Court judge is chairing the commission.
Donie Ormonde: A former Fianna Fáil TD and senator during the 1980s and 1990s. He had replaced the Kenneallys as a FF candidate for Waterford for much of the 1980s, after Billy Kenneally lost his seat at the 1982 election. Ormonde was a radiologist by profession and also held a board director’s role on the South Eastern Health Board.
Sean Cashman: Cashman, now aged in his 80s, was the Acting Chief Superintendent of An Garda Síochána in Waterford when he interviewed Bill Kenneally in a pivotal Christmas 1987 interview. He received a confession that multiple children had been abused but decided to let Kenneally go, as long as he sought medical help.
PJ Hayes: An inspector who was present during the 1987 interview with Cashman and Kenneally. The commission has heard repeated evidence that Hayes was close friends with Monsignor Shine – Kenneally’s uncle – and often played cards together and collected donations at Mass for Shine. Now deceased.
Seanie Barry: A member of An Garda Síochána who Bill Kenneally has said approached him on Waterford’s O’Connell Street in March 1988 to tell him that he was told to “keep an eye” on the sports coach. This came weeks after Kenneally’s interview with Cashman and Hayes. Barry and Kenneally knew each other as the were founding members, alongside Brendan Kenneally, of Thomas Francis Meaghers basketball club. Barry is now deceased.
Anthony Pettit: The current chief superintendent of the Waterford, Carlow and Kilkenny region. Pettit oversaw the investigation that led to the first prosecution and sentencing of Kenneally in 2016.
Dr Michael Kelleher: The psychiatrist who Bill Kenneally visited in 1988 after being contacted by Shine. He was also a board director of the South Eastern Health Board. Now deceased.
Dr Ricky Horgan: There are conflicting claims over whether Bill Kenneally visited Horgan for further psychiatric treatment when new claims were made about his abuse of children in 2002. Bill Kenneally has said he met with the doctor for a short session, while Horgan denies ever accepting the accountant as a patient.
Brother Columba: The headmaster of local secondary school De La Salle College where Kenneally coached basketball. The inquiry has heard different claims on how the school cut ties with Kenneally. While Sean Cashman has said that a guard was dispatched to inform the principal of Kenneally’s crimes, the inquiry has also heard that a student who was being assaulted by Kenneally gave Bro Columba a polaroid photograph of another, separate victim tied to a chair, leading to Kenneally to be turned away from the school.
Tom Murphy: Murphy’s son Barry is among the survivors who pressed for the commission to be formed. A longtime campaigner and operator for Fianna Fáil candidates in Waterford, the inquiry has focused on Murphy’s evidence in its latter stages, including conversations he allegedly had with senior gardaí and others in the early 1990s.
Damien Tiernan: Former RTÉ journalist who made an investigative programme for Prime Time about the Kenneally case in 2016. It has been broadcast for the inquiry and accepted as evidence. Tiernan has also appeared as a witness and outlined a number of conversations that took place between him and Monsignor Shine and Donie Ormonde concerning Bill Kenneally.
Basketball clubs in Waterford: Bill Kenneally was involved with three different clubs during his time in Waterford, including Victors, Thomas Francis Meaghers and, finally, Waterford Vikings. The former two are defunct.
Bill Kenneally, of Laragh, Summerville Avenue, Waterford, was first sentenced in 2016 after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting 10 boys in the 1980s.
Last year, he was handed an additional four-and-a-half year sentence for assaulting another five boys between December 1979 and March 1990.
The five complainants are now men in their 40s and 50s but were aged between 13 and 15 at the time of the offending. They came into contact with Kenneally in different ways, including as a sports coach and family friend.
Survivors from both court cases have shared similar stories in court – and at the inquiry – of being tied up by Kenneally, in his home and in woodland areas.
They have also told of how Kenneally regularly took photos of them, which they viewed as a threat against them from speaking up.
When asked about it this week, Kenneally said he took the photos of the naked children for “the thrill” and as “gratification”.
Asked this week by a barrister representing some victims, Ray Motherway, if he ever kept a list containing victims’ names or their dates of birth, Kenneally laughed and pointed to his head: “I kept them all in there”.
Testimony read aloud by another barrister, Barra McGrory, recalled one boy’s experiences of abuse by Kenneally as he was tied up and tortured by him at his home.
“He kept pulling on a string and as he is pulling on the string it is digging into my legs, cutting… at this part I start crying.
“…I’m told to shut up because the neighbours might hear. Meanwhile he is laughing through all of this.”
Kenneally outlined his own family’s background this week.
They were a prominent business family in Waterford thanks to a long-held contract for bus routes across the region.
P&W Kenneally predated the State and when CIE was formed in the 1930s, the Kenneallys were able to maintain their routes in Waterford. They later moved into property and owned five pubs in the local area.
They entered national politics in the 1950s and cemented their position when William Kenneally, Bill’s grandfather, topped the poll in 1954 with 7,777 votes.
The number seven entered the family folklore and was added to all of the company’s busses, the inquiry heard this week.
Bill Kenneally himself also viewed it as a lucky number. Several victims have recounted how he would pay them in multiples of seven after abusing them.
Despite the flare ups between Kenneally and the inquiry, some new information did emerge this week.
We learned for the first time that Kenneally confessed in 1987 to abusing six boys to gardaí Sean Cashman and PJ Hayes.
The number of boys he admitted to assaulting in this interview was previously estimated to be three, but this was the first chance to hear Kenneally describe it as he recalls.
Each of these six boys were named in the Garda interview and at the inquiry this week, he said.
Some, such as Jason Clancy and Kevin Keating, were sitting in the room.
Kenneally said that Cashman and Hayes had asked him about a seventh boy, but he said he hadn’t abused that child.
Separately, he also claimed that he was offered a seat on Waterford City Council in the early-1990s.
Kenneally said he had been put forward for the seat in 1992 after his cousin Brendan became a junior minister in the Fianna Fail-led government.
If he had accepted the offer, he said he could have been Mayor of Waterford within two years due to an agreement among parties on the council. Bill Kenneally cited the local Fianna Fáil committee as behind the offer.
He said he declined the offer out of concern that it would “stir up a can of worms” and reveal the allegations against him.
Brendan Kenneally, who previously gave evidence at the inquiry, was not in attendance this week so has not had an opportunity to respond to his cousin’s claims.
During the public hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Kenneally also gave his account of apparent meetings that occurred with psychiatrists – on two occasions – after his family was contacted about the allegations against him.
The first of these came following the 1987 garda investigation.
Kenneally said that his uncle Monsignor Shine arranged for him to see a Waterford-based psychiatrist Dr Michael Kelleher. He underwent up to six sessions at Kelleher’s home throughout January and February 1988.
Later that year, he said he felt “urges” towards teenagers again and contacted Kelleher.
On this occasion, the psychiatrist told him that he could give him medication to help, but alleged that both the doctor and himself were reluctant to do so as the “chemist would know what it was for” when he went to collect the prescription.
Kelleher is now deceased.
Kenneally also contradicted previous evidence heard about an alleged meeting between him and the psychologist in 2002.
The doctor, Ricky Horgan, told the inquiry that he never met with Kennealy. This week, Kenneally alleged he met him for 30 minutes at his house but the treatment never went any further.
The inquiry previously heard one victim’s evidence that at a basketball tournament in Cork in 1980 or 1981, he was placed in a room for an overnight stay by Brendan Kenneally, the man who would later serve as a government minister.
It was alleged that Brendan and Bill Kenneally, who were founding members of a local club along with a local garda, were in charge of pairing people together for an overnight stay.
The man previously told the commission that Brendan Kenneally was “laughing and smirking” when he told him that he would be “staying with Billy” that night.
The victim, now in his 50s, says he was “brutally molested” that night and “hundreds of photos” were taken by Kenneally.
It’s further alleged that Brendan Kenneally approached the then-teenager the next morning and allegedly said “hope you had fun last night”.
The victim believes this showed that Brendan Kenneally knew about his cousin’s activities.
Brendan Kenneally denied the claim and said he had no recollection of it, including any memory of the boy at the time.
This week, Bill Kenneally, denied that this has happened. He added that he would have liked to have been at the inquiry “to cross examine” the victim’s allegations at the time.
Overall, Bill Kenneally reiterated that gardaí didn’t know about him until 1987 and dismissed any questions indicating more was known sooner.
This was despite one man telling the inquiry that he was turned away from Waterford Garda Station in 1985 – two years before the sports coach’s confession – after he entered to tell the guard on the desk that Kenneally had been abusing him.
A High Court action has since been launched by the man against gardaí and Kenneally in relation to this incident.
Bill Kenneally also disputed that he was stopped by gardaí in the mid-1980s while driving at night with one victim.
The victim alleged that the guard told the boy to get out and walk home without Kenneally, which he believes was a sign that the guards knew something about Bill Kenneally much sooner than thought.
The inquiry continues after Easter, where the cross-examination of Kenneally will resume.
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