Paedophile Bill Kenneally will not appear before inquiry after gardaí decide not to cross-examine him

Commission was set up to examine how Kenneally's crimes were dealt with by State bodies, including gardaí, the HSE and Basketball Ireland

Bill Kenneally is currently serving a 19-year sentence for the indecent assault of 15 boys between 1979 and 1990. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/ RollingNews.ie

Notorious paedophile Bill Kenneally will not appear again before the commission investigating how his crimes were dealt with by the State after gardaí elected not to cross-examine him.

Kenneally previously appeared before the commission, chaired by former High Court judge Michael White, to give testimony on two consecutive days last March.

At the time, counsel for An Garda Síochána had reserved the force’s position in terms of whether or not it would choose to cross-examine the convicted criminal.

It has now emerged it has waived that right.

The commission, first convened in November 2019 when known as the Hickson Commission, has now invited Kenneally’s victims to make written submissions to it, a formality which could precede the hearing of oral submissions from the same people.

An Garda Síochána is one of multiple State bodies with vested interests in the proceedings of the commission, which is charged with evaluating how the criminal actions of Kenneally were dealt with by those bodies at the time of his original offences.

Those other bodies include the HSE, Basketball Ireland, and the diocese of Waterford and Lismore.

Kenneally, a former basketball coach and accountant, is currently serving a 19-year sentence for the indecent assault of 15 boys between 1979 and 1990.

The commission of investigation first began public hearings in September 2023 after Kenneally’s various criminal proceedings had concluded.

Kenneally’s testimony

At the paedophile’s own two days of testimony last March, he asserted he had heard nothing more from An Garda Síochána for 25 years after an interview by appointment with two gardaí — Superintendent Sean Cashman and Inspector PJ Hayes — at a Garda station in December 1987.

Kenneally’s house was finally searched in December 2012, before he himself was arrested for the first time the following May.

Kenneally, now 73, said he had attended the Garda interview after his uncle, then Fianna Fáil TD Billy Kenneally, had told him gardaí wanted to speak to him.

Following that 90-minute interview, Kenneally said he was instructed not to contact the boys again and to seek out psychiatric help.

Kennelly said following the Garda interview, his last contact with any member of the gardaí was with his friend Sean Barry, who had spoken to him on the street in 1988.

He agreed at the time he had been “afraid” of attending the Garda interview, and had considered prosecution a possibility, but added child abuse “wouldn’t have been regarded one quarter as serious then”, and said he would have expected a sentence of “possibly two years” had he been convicted.

Kenneally said he did not believe he had ruined his victims’ lives as they had taken so long to come forward, and said he had been the victim of abuse himself.

Once the commission has heard from its remaining witnesses, if any, it will retire to produce its final report on the matter.