Psychiatrist denies claiming that convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally was unlikely to reoffend

A former Waterford Fianna Fáil TD also denied that he had told a former RTÉ reporter that he had been asked to keep details of the Kenneally case away from the public

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

A commission of investigation into the case of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally has heard from a psychiatrist who denied concluding in 2001 that Kenneally was unlikely to re-offend.

Dr Richard Horgan, a retired psychiatrist with the HSE, told the commission that to the best of his recollection he had never even met Bill Kenneally in 2001.

That statement contradicts evidence previously given to the commission last September by Kenneally’s cousin, former Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Kenneally, who said that Dr Horgan had informed him verbally in 2001 that Bill Kenneally had not offended for a number of years and was unlikely to do so again.

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

The commission heard discussion of a note taken by Dr Horgan following an undated meeting at his home between him and Brendan Kenneally, in which Dr Horgan told Brendan Kenneally that he had no memory of phoning him in 2001 regarding a possible referral of Bill Kenneally.

It is unclear when that meeting took place, though the note in question refers to the need to “co-operate” with a commission. It was put to Dr Horgan that would date the meeting as after 2018, when the commission was first set up.

Dr Horgan said he believed the meeting would date from “2017, 2018, 2016”, but didn’t believe it would date back as far as 2001.

He told the commission that he would never have delivered an opinion that someone is unlikely to re-offend. “I wouldn't come to that conclusion at all, because you cannot guarantee that someone would not re-offend,” he said.

Brendan Kenneally told the commission last September that he had only first learned of Bill Kenneally’s abuses in 2001, but that he did not go to the gardaí with that information because he had been asked not to by the person who gave him the information, and also because he felt he did not have enough evidence to go to the gardaí.

Donie Ormonde evidence

Earlier, the commission heard evidence from former Waterford Fianna Fáil TD Donie Ormonde, who denied that he had told a former RTÉ reporter that he had been asked to keep details of the Kenneally case away from the public.

Damien Tiernan, RTÉ’s former South East correspondent, told the commission last September that he had met Mr Ormonde in a hotel car park in March 2016, when Mr Ormonde told him that he had been asked in 2013 by Bill Kenneally’s uncle, Monsignor John Shine, to keep details of the case “away from the public”.

Addressing the commission, Mr Ormonde denied that that was the case, saying he had only ever spoken to Monsignor Shine, who is now deceased, once – a conversation in 2013 when the monsignor had requested that Mr Ormonde help him in securing a space at Havenwood nursing home for his “unmarried sister”.

Mr Ormonde said that during that conversation the monsignor had said “you would have seen the article about my nephew”, in reference to an April 2013 Irish Times piece which reported historic abuse of children by a sports coach. Mr Ormonde said that he replied “yes, but I’d rather not go there”, and that the subject had not been raised again.

He denied that his meeting with Mr Tiernan had been pr-earranged, and said that he would not accept that his own recollection of the meeting was less accurate than that of Mr Tiernan, notwithstanding Mr Tiernan being a prominent journalist who had taken notes of the conversation.

“In actual fact I wouldn’t. He’s saying I spoke to Marie Shine (Bill Kenneally’s mother) which I didn’t. He’s saying I was asked to intervene with Bill Kenneally which I wasn’t,” he said.

He further denied telling Mr Tiernan that he was of the opinion that a psychologist — Michael Kelleher, who was assigned to review Bill Kenneally in the late 1980s and who was also a colleague of Mr Ormonde’s in his profession of radiologist — was susceptible to political pressure.

“I would not have said that as I would have had no reason to say it,” he said. He said he could not explain why Mr Tiernan would have recorded in his notes that Mr Ormonde had told him that he’d spoken with Marie Shine.

Mr Tiernan said: "I have read some of the reports from the Commission of Inquiry today and evidence from former FF TD Donie Ormonde. I completely refute some of points he has said and I stand over my evidence 100%. I will go back to the Commission if asked."