A SENIOR GARDA who was aware of child abuser Bill Kenneally’s activities “got his Chief Superintendent stripes” through “Fianna Fáil connections”, a State inquiry heard today.

Tom Murphy – a veteran Fianna Fáil campaigner whose son Barry was a victim of Kenneally – alleged that he met with Superintendent Sean Cashman and Inspector PJ Hayes in Waterford Garda Station at an unknown date after a 1987 investigation into Kenneally to express what he described as his “outrage” at their handling of the sex offender. 

The inquiry had not been told of this meeting before today. 

Cashman previously told the commission that there was “no cover up” in the case and that he thought he was dealing with Bill Kenneally in the correct manner in 1987, as nobody wanted to press charges.

Gardaí received assurances from Kenneally that he would seek medical help, Cashman told the commission in his earlier testimony, and Kenneally was released without charge. 

At its latest hearing this afternoon, Murphy alleged he met with Cashman and Hayes in Waterford Garda Station at an unknown date at some point after 1987.

Murphy claimed he told Cashman that he was outraged that he had “left a pedophile back on the street” as a result of not charging him.

The businessman claimed that Cashman had told him that Kenneally had left the garda station in 1987 “a chastened boy” and had been dealt with.

Attempts by the commission to pinpoint the date of the meeting were unsuccessful, with Murphy telling the inquiry he could not remember when the meeting occurred and denying that he had known about Kenneally’s abuse of children decades earlier than he previously claimed.

In earlier separate evidence by a man who said Kenneally sought to groom him, the now 51-year-old told the inquiry that the sports coach’s family had offered to pay one victim’s parents over assaults committed in the late 1980s.

The commission is looking at whether convicted sex offender Bill Kenneally, who is currently in prison for the abuse of 15 boys, could have been stopped much sooner than he was.

Tom Murphy’s son Barry Murphy, who waived his anonymity in the wake of Kenneally’s 2016 conviction, has since spoken publicly about his ordeal alongside other survivors of the abuse.  

The inquiry, chaired by retired High Court judge Michael White in the Law Library in Dublin, is investigating how allegations of abuse by Kenneally were handled by organisations including An Garda Síochána, the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, the former South Eastern Health Board and Basketball Ireland.

Its scope also includes allegations in respect of unnamed “political figures” who may have prevented Kenneally from being arrested and charged at an earlier stage.

Today’s hearing

Tom Murphy, a car dealer in Waterford city, was speaking to the commission about his knowledge of the case and how it affected on his own family. The inquiry heard that he had spent 55 years working in Waterford and was involved in multiple church and community groups.

Murphy alleged that he believes the late Monsignor John Shine was in the room at Waterford Garda Station when gardaí brought Bill Kenneally, Shine’s nephew, in for questioning about abuse of children in 1987. 

The inquiry heard how, in the fallout from Kenneally’s conviction in 2016, victims met with Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan in March 2017 to seek the removal of Shine from the board of a local primary school over his inaction on the case. 

Ercus Stewart, for the commission, read from notes of the meeting taken by the bishop’s secretary, which said: “Tom Murphy named [by victims] as someone who knew back in 1987 … this was told by the three boys to the bishop.”

Murphy rejected this when it was put to him, saying “nothing could be further from the truth”. 

The inquiry heard of a letter Murphy had sent to his local parish in 2016 alleging that Shine had tried to “bury” the allegations about his nephew.

He declined to say how he had the information, instead telling the inquiry that Inspector Hayes and Shine were “two peas in a pod” at the time. Both men died in recent years.

He told the inquiry that he didn’t learn of Kenneally’s abuse of his son Barry until 2016, but claimed to have had suspicions of the sports coach as far back as 1987-88, when he spotted him on “two Saturdays on the trot” picking up groups of boys in Waterford.

“What is a 40-year-old guy doing with four or five kids,” he recalled thinking, stating that it “didn’t look right” as none of the teenagers had any sports gear.

He alleged that he passed on the concern to Bill Halley, who was then a director of financial firm Ernst and Young’s Waterford office – where Kenneally worked as an accountant. Halley has not had an opportunity to respond to these claims at the inquiry. 

Murphy said he had been told that the managing partner of another firm spoke about Kenneally on his “deathbed” and claimed that it showed that the directors of the companies in the area were aware of concerns about Kenneally.

When senior counsel for the inquiry, Ercus Stewart, noted that Sean Cashman became Waterford Chief Superintendent and Inspector PJ Hayes was promoted to superintendent, Murphy interjected.

“I have my own view on that. ‘Till the day I die I will say that Sean Cashman got his Chief Superintendent stripes through Bill Kenneally and his Fianna Fáil connections at the time,” he said.

Cashman was not present at the inquiry today and has not had an opportunity to respond to Murphy’s claims. 

In further evidence, Murphy said he had supported some of the party’s candidates at different points in subsequent years, and remains a “good friend” of former TD Donie Ormonde who appeared before the commission earlier this week.

When asked about the meeting with Cashman and Hayes, Murphy recalled looking out at Mayor’s Walk in Waterford from an office belonging to either Cashman or Hayes and explained that he knew Cashman on a personal basis due to their involvement in the Lions Club.

“You don’t forget the chief of police and his sidekick,” he said.

“I went there to express my abhorrence at this happening,” he added. “That it was known this guy [Kenneally] went up there with uncle, had his knuckles rapped and he walked out.”

Cashman previously told the inquiry that he had been contacted by a distressed father about the abuse of his son, leading him to contact Bill Kenneally’s uncle, a former Fianna Fáil TD also named Billy Keneally, to arrange for the sports coach to come into the station during Christmas Week in 1987. Cashman said that Billy Kenneally was in the room while the younger Kenneally was being interviewed by gardaí.

It was then that Cashman received assurances that Bill Kenneally would no longer abuse children – however as Mr Justice White has noted previously that the abuse of boys continued for several years afterwards.

Questioned by a barrister representing a number of victims, Barra McGrory, Murphy was asked how he came to know about Bill Kenneally’s dealings with Waterford gardaí ahead of his meeting with Cashman and Hayes.

McGrory put it to Murphy that while he previously went on record in an interview with RTÉ’s Prime Time programme stating that he didn’t know about Kenneally’s abuse of children until the 2010s, his meeting with the senior garda members could only have come in the 1990s at the latest as Cashman and Hayes had retired by the 2010s.

“Do you understand this this means you had this information as far back as 1990 or thereabouts. Whenever you had this meeting with Sean Cashman, somebody had given you that information,” McGrory said.

Murphy agreed with the barrister that he didn’t know that his son Barry was a victim until 2016.

Referencing earlier evidence heard in private, the senior counsel then alleged that Murphy had learned about Kenneally because of a “secret phone call” from the mother of one victim, known as A27.

“That was in the late 1980s so you were made aware by A27’s mother that Bill Kenneally had abused at least her son and that she was warning you as a parent – and that was what motivated you to go see Sean Cashman.”

In response, Murphy said he was unsure where he had learned of the information and said he didn’t believe he received a call from the woman.

“It could very well have been the case but I went there and I expressed abhorrence. I always remember Sean Cashman saying to me that Bill Kenneally came in with his uncle and they left.”

He said he had told Cashman that “unfortunate young fellas from marginalisd areas” would be brought to court over “stolen cigarettes or a bottle of vodka”, but that the senior Garda members had left “a pedophile back on the street”.

McGrory, who said he accepted he was raising “difficult personal issues” for the Murphy family, told the car dealer that his son had previously given the inquiry verbal evidence that his father knew of Kenneally’s abuse further back than Tom Murphy claimed.

“Your son told us that your wife, his mother, told him that you did know, that she knew about allegations about Bill Kenneally,” McGrory said.

“Your wife had told your son that at some point there had been allegations about Bill Kenneally, that you had been informed as parents about Bill Kenneally’s activity.

“That would support, I would say to you, that you had knowledge back then and that’s what motivated you to go see Sean Cashman.”

McGrory added that Murphy’s motivation to contact Ernst and Young’s director was in fact caused by the “secret phone call” from another victim’s mother.

“It would make a lot more sense that if you had a report from a parent that Bill Kenneally was abusing her child, that would motivate you go to go to Sean Cashman – that was really the motivation for contacting his [Kenneally's] employers.”

Murphy said the information “had filtered through to me,” but added: “I don’t know who told me.”

He told the inquiry that he didn’t believe Cashman and Hayes were aware that Kenneally had gone on to abuse more children after 1987.

Shine 

Murphy also claimed that he didn’t believe he learned of any involvement in the case of Shine, a parish priest for Tramore who was Bill Kenneally’s uncle, from former Fianna Fáil TD Donie Ormonde.

Last year, former RTÉ journalist Damien Tiernan had alleged at the inquiry that Ormonde told him he received a phone call from Shine in 2013 as allegations about Kenneally came to light, seeking to “suppress” the sex abuse claims.

Earlier this week at the inquiry Ormonde denied ever telling Tiernan about the phone call or receiving Shine’s request.

Murphy said Ormonde is a “good friend” and that the two had operated as board directors for local radio station WLR FM for more than 25 years.

He denied having any memory of a conversation with Ormonde, who served as a Fianna Fáil TD and senator in the 1980s and early 1990s, about Shine.

“I don’t recollect it. He could have but I don’t recollect it,” Murphy said. “I could say yes, because it’s easier, but I don’t recall.”

Earlier this morning, the inquiry heard from Brian Walker, a 51-year-old man who alleges Bill Kenneally sought to groom him as a teenager in the 1980s.

Walker alleged that he had been told by his mother last year that a member of the Kenneally family had offered to pay another victim’s family whose son had been abused in the late 1980s.

He recalled how Kenneally would bring sacks of alcohol to give to boys playing tennis and basketball in attempts to groom him and other teens, making “lewd” remarks while giving them lifts home.

At the time, Walker thought Kenneally was a “great man, giving the boys drink, money”, but added they became fearful.

“When you’re young and innocent and naive you don’t expect too much,” he said.

Walker recalled his own mother questioning him to “see was I abused”, which he said wasn’t the case.

The man told Mr Justice White that his mother would likely appear before the commission to help it in its work.

Concluding this phase of the commission, the judge said there were about “two to three” days worth of evidence still be heard and advised parties would be notified of the next phase in the coming weeks.