investigation | 

Former TD and cousin of Bill Kenneally says he doesn’t remember boy spending night with serial abuser

Brendan Kenneally allegedly asked one of his victims if “he had fun last night” the morning after he had been molested

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A former Fianna Fáil TD, who is a cousin of convicted child abuser Bill Kenneally, allegedly asked one of his victims if “he had fun last night” the morning after he had been molested, a Commission of Investigation has heard.

Brendan Kenneally, who was a TD and Senator between 1989 and 2011, was giving evidence yesterday to the Commission investigating the response of gardaí, politicians, clergy members, health board officials and others to the allegations about Kenneally.

Brendan Kenneally told the Commission that he had been involved in founding the TF Meagher’s basketball club in Waterford in 1973 with Bill Kenneally. He said Bill Kenneally was also a member of Fianna Fáil and was also involved in canvassing during elections and was a tallyman at election counts.

It was put to Brendan Kennelly that he, alongside his cousin, had been in charge of assigning bedrooms during an overnight stay for a basketball tournament in Cork. Brendan Kenneally allegedly told the victim that he would be pairing with Bill. The exact date of the incident is unknown but it is believed to have occurred in 1981.

“I have no recollection of that,” said the witness.

Reading from a transcript of evidence one of Kenneally’s victims had previously given to the Commission, Commission barrister, Ercus Stewart said the victim said: “Brendan Kenneally was laughing and smirking over this sleeping arrangement.” “At that stage I was like, ‘No’,” the man told the commission in earlier evidence read by Mr Stewart.

“I knew what was coming … I wanted to go to Cork because the last thing I expected to happen was to be abused that weekend because there’d be so many adults around that weekend.”

The following morning, the victim said Brendan Kenneally came up to him, “with a smile on his face” and asked, “Well, did you have fun last night?”

The victim told the commission that he had been “brutally molested” the night before and when Brendan Kenneally said what he said he “Figured Christ, he knows.”

Brendan Kenneally said he didn’t “remember that trip at all” and that he was not aware of any abuse allegations relating to his cousin until 2001.

He said it would be highly unlikely that a juvenile would be present on what was an adult trip.

Basketball coach Bill Kenneally was convicted in two trials in 2016 and earlier this year of the abuse of 15 boys between 1979 and 1990.

The commission heard that gardaí believe he could have abused at least double that number of boys, and possibly more, in what has been described as one of the most serious cases of paedophilia ever discovered in this country.

Brendan Kenneally said he was never informed of, aware of and never observed anything untoward between Bill Kenneally and young boys inside or outside the basketball club between 1973 and the late 1980s.

He said the first he knew of any allegations in relation to his cousin was on 23 August 2001 when a constituent whose husband had been abused by Bill Kenneally made an appointment to see him and told him her partner and another boy had been sexually abused.

She outlined that this involved stripping the boy to his underpants, tying him to a tree and taking a polaroid picture of him.

“I was horrified,” said Mr Kenneally.

“I couldn’t believe anyone could stoop to do something like that.”

Mr Kenneally told the Commission that the woman was adamant that he was under no circumstances to go to the gardaí.

What she wanted to achieve, he said, was that what happened to the two boys would never happen to anyone else.

He said he had approached his father, Billy Kenneally, who had also been a TD and Senator in Waterford, for advice.

Brendan Kenneally said: “I discovered he knew about it (that Bill Kenneally was abusing boys) previously.”

The commission has heard evidence that former acting Chief Superintendent, Seán Cashman had contacted Billy Kenneally in 1987 after the father of another victim said he had been abused.

Brendan Kenneally said he had not been aware of this.

He said his father encouraged him to contact a priest, the late Monsignor John Shine, who was an uncle of Bill Kenneally. Mr Kenneally said that when he told the priest he said, “Oh not again.”

They agreed that Brendan Kenneally would arrange for Bill Kenneally to see a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist told him in a verbal report that Bill Kenneally had not offended for a number of years and was unlikely to offend again.

Barra McGrory KC/SC with Conan Fegan BL, counsel for a number of the survivors, put it to the witness that referring Bill Kinneally to a psychiatrist was a way of “avoiding the formal authorities.”

Brendan Kenneally said he put his faith in the psychiatrist and that he “would examine him and get to the bottom of it.”

Mr McGrory asked the witness if his father had told him that Bill had confessed in 1987 to abusing “many boys.”

Brendan Kenneally said no.

“Can I suggest that you already knew, that this was a family secret and you didn’t need to ask?” said Mr McGrory.

The witness said again that he did not know anything about his cousin’s abuse allegations until August 23, 2001.

The commission, sitting in the Law Library in Dublin, is examining allegations of collusion between An Garda Síochána, the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, the former South Eastern Health Board, Basketball Ireland, and unnamed “political figures”.

Brendan Kenneally, who was a TD for Waterford twice between 1989 to 2011, denied concealing abuse by Bill Kenneally in order to “protect political ambition.”

During further cross-examination by Mr McGrory, Brendan Kenneally was asked whether he failed to contact gardaí because he “knew there was going to be a general election in the next ten months” and feared that his “prospects would be damaged”.

“Would you not have been concerned about it if it got out that cousin Bill was a child abuser?,” Mr McGrory asked.

Brendan Kenneally replied that the “thought never entered my head”.

“It never entered my head. Total truth, I’m under oath – that is the truth.”