{"id":498131,"date":"2026-06-13T18:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498131\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T18:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:35:11","slug":"bill-kenneallys-actions-were-horrific-but-no-evidence-of-ff-cover-up-taoiseach-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498131\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Kenneally\u2019s actions were \u2018horrific\u2019 but \u2018no evidence\u2019 of FF cover-up, Taoiseach says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taoiseach has said the actions of Bill Kenneally<\/a>, the serial child sex abuser, were \u201creprehensible and horrific\u201d, but there was \u201cno evidence\u201d of a cover-up within Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A commission of investigation report<\/a> published on Wednesday found Kenneally, who was a member of a well-known Fianna F\u00e1il family, was given \u201cobjectively favourable treatment<\/a>\u201d when his crimes first came to the attention of Waterford<\/a> garda\u00ed in 1987.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Dublin on Saturday, Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said he had called for a commission to be held into the handling of the case \u201cnearly a decade ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that the central conclusion of the commission of investigation is that there was a failure on behalf of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a> at the time, in 1987, to deal adequately and properly with the presentation of issues and allegations in respect of Bill Keneally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin said the report \u201cdoes not implicate the Fianna F\u00e1il party at all as an organisation and, in fact, makes the point that the Fianna F\u00e1il party was not advised even locally or in any shape or form by any individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report is clear there\u2019s no evidence whatsoever of any conspiracy or any attempt of a cover-up, and that\u2019s the evidence \u2013 we must allow the report to speak for itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kenneally\u2019s uncles were former Fianna F\u00e1il TD Billy Kenneally snr and senior local cleric Msgr John Shine. His cousin, the son of Billy Kenneally snr, is former Fianna F\u00e1il TD Brendan Kenneally. <\/p>\n

The report said people in \u201cresponsible positions\u201d \u2013 including Shine and Billy Kenneally snr \u2013 were aware of Bill Kenneally\u2019s sexual abuse from as early as 1987<\/a> and were also made aware in 2001 that Bill Kenneally had continued abusing children after the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0State apology to be offered to Bill Kenneally victims after report detailing \u2018abhorrent crimes\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Without naming them, Martin said: \u201cThe two former public representatives involved did wrong in the manner in which they addressed the issue, no question about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach also said the Government was \u201corganising time in the D\u00e1il to debate this comprehensively\u201d.<\/p>\n

Noting the report found that State agencies had \u201ceffectively failed the victims in terms of not dealing with this robustly and properly at the time\u201d, Martin said the Government \u201cwill be considering an apology, and any further actions\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> \u201cwill be meeting with the victims\u201d. <\/p>\n

Kenneally \u2013 who sexually abused, tortured, restrained and blackmailed boys whom he had groomed and fed alcohol \u2013 made admissions of abuse to garda\u00ed in the 1980s but instead of being investigated, he received a warning and a referral to a psychologist.<\/p>\n

The former basketball coach pleaded guilty in late 2015 and again in 2022 to multiple cases of child sex abuse in Waterford. He is in jail for the abuse of 15 children between 1979 and 1990. While the report found that the 1987 warning from garda\u00ed had \u201cchanged\u201d the paedophile\u2019s behaviour, it \u201cdid not stop his sexual abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n

Survivors have called for a public apology from the State for the assaults they suffered and for the \u201cdecades they were forced to fight for a truth that should never have been buried\u201d. \u2013 Additional reporting: PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach has said the actions of Bill Kenneally, the serial child sex abuser, were \u201creprehensible and horrific\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,210811,895,61,60,18573,1843,43,6513],"class_list":["post-498131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-bill-kenneally-inquiry","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-waterford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}