Probe into Bill Kenneally case to hear from former TD

The commission of investigation into allegations of impropriety in the case of convicted child abuser Bill Kenneally resumes on Wednesday.

The commission of investigation into allegations of impropriety in the case of convicted child abuser Bill Kenneally will resume on Wednesday and hear from a former Fianna Fáil TD who allegedly claimed he was asked to keep details of the case “away from the public”.

The commission, which was formed in 2018, is set to hear on Wednesday morning from 80-year-old Donie Ormonde, a TD and senator for Fianna Fáil in the 1980s and 1990s, regarding what he knew about Kenneally’s case.

Last September, former RTÉ south-east correspondent Damien Tiernan told the commission in public session that Mr Ormonde had told him in 2016 that he had been asked three years previously by Waterford Monsignor John Shine to keep details of the case away from the public.

Mr Tiernan alleged that the phone call between the now-deceased monsignor and Mr Ormonde had taken place in the wake of a 2013 Irish Times report which contained details of the historic abuse carried out by Kenneally.

The commission is set to hold hearings on Wednesday and Thursday this week, before reverting to private session on Thursday afternoon and Friday.

Other witnesses will include Richard Horgan, Garda Sergeant David Butler and Inspector Donal Donohoe, and Tom Murphy, the father of one of Kenneally’s victims.

Kenneally, who was first convicted in 2016, is serving a 19-year sentence for the indecent assault of 15 boys in Waterford between 1979 and 1980.

The commission heard from another former Fianna Fáil TD last September, Kenneally’s cousin Brendan Kenneally, who said he was “not trying to sweep it under the carpet” when he did not go to gardaí after first being told of abuse perpetrated by Bill Kenneally back in 2001.

This was after a constituent had visited his office and told him two boys had been abused by Bill Kenneally. She told him of a boy known to her who had been stripped, tied to a tree, and photographed by Bill Kenneally.

Brendan Kenneally said he was “horrified” by what he was told and had then spoken to his father, who was aware of allegations against Bill Kenneally.

His father had told him to talk to Monsignor Shine, an uncle of Bill Kenneally’s, who responded with words to the effect of “oh, not again”.

'Not run-of-the-mill'

The commission of investigation had also heard last September from child sexual abuse expert Kieran McGrath, who had stressed that the actions of Bill Kenneally were “not run-of-the-mill child abuse” but rather were “bizarre, ritualistic, and sadistic” and indicative of psychopathy.

Mr McGrath, who has been working in the field since the early 1980s and was heavily involved with the creation of Ireland’s first two child sexual abuse units at that time, expressed deep professional reservations regarding the contemporary actions of professionals who were made aware of the abuse being carried out by Bill Kenneally.

Last May, Bill Kenneally was handed an additional four-and-a-half-year sentence for indecently assaulting five boys.

He had pleaded guilty to 13 sample counts of indecently assaulting five boys, aged between 13 and 15 at the time, in locations in Waterford on unknown dates between December 1979 and March 1990.

He had entered the 13 guilty pleas on the sixth day of a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, after initially pleading not guilty when the trial opened in April. He had been facing 266 counts of indecently and sexually assaulting five boys in locations in Waterford, Cork, and Kilkenny on dates between 1978 and 1993.