Hanafin admits to helping secure visa for Nepalese
But Ms Hanafin has stressed Prem Timalsina was 19 at the time of the visa application and, therefore, an “adult man”.
In a move to distance herself from the controversy surrounding the poet, the minister said she was “appalled and shocked by recent reports and revelations in relation to Mr Ó Searcaigh”.
The poet has rejected suggestions in a documentary that he sexually exploited teenage boys in Nepal.
The documentary reveals that boys aged 16 and older, whose education the Donegal poet supported, had spent the night in his room and been sexually intimate with him.
The legal age of consent in Nepal is 16.
In yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, it was revealed that Ms Hanafin, who knew Mr Ó Searcaigh in college, lobbied Foreign Affairs Minister David Andrews in 1998 about a visa for Prem Timalsina.
A spokeswoman for Ms Hanafin subsequently confirmed this in a statement yesterday, but insisted Prem was 19 at the time of the visa application.
“In 1998, poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh contacted Mary Hanafin TD to seek assistance with her constituency colleague, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs David Andrews TD, in getting a visa for an adult friend of his to visit Ireland,” the statement said. “Mary Hanafin had known Mr Ó Searcaigh in college and this was a type of routine request for visa assistance frequently made by Dáil deputies to ministers.
“In this instance the application was reviewed and a visa was approved for this adult man to visit Ireland on this occasion.”
The statement insisted any assertion that Prem was a minor at the time of the visa application was “false and untrue”.
“Mary Hanafin made the representation regarding an adult visa. The age of the applicant was verified when the visa application record was examined on Friday last.
“The date of birth on the application of the person was 1979, making him 19 at the time.
“This was the only representation made by Mary Hanafin on behalf of Cathal Ó Searcaigh.
“Minister Hanafin is appalled and shocked by recent reports and revelations in relation to Mr Ó Searcaigh.”
However, the poet says the depiction of him in the documentary Fairytale of Kathmandu is not accurate.
“The veiled suggestion that I exploited young men for my own sexual gratification is not true,” he has said.
The film, shot two years ago, will be screened at the Dublin Film Festival later this month.
