{"id":522851,"date":"2026-06-28T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522851\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T16:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:10:11","slug":"state-apology-for-kenneally-survivors-to-be-made-14-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522851\/","title":{"rendered":"State apology for Kenneally survivors to be made 14 July"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has confirmed a State apology will be offered to the survivors of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally on 14 July.<\/p>\n

Kenneally died in prison earlier this month while serving a 19-year sentence for historic abuse of boys in Waterford.<\/a><\/p>\n

A Commission of Investigation set up to examine the response to what was one of the most serious cases of paedophilia ever uncovered in Ireland found there was a clear and serious dereliction of duty by senior garda\u00ed, even by the standards of the time.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9’s This Week, Mr O’Callaghan said: “I met survivors two weeks ago. I couldn’t avoid the fact that in the report there is a finding that there was a dereliction of duty by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na in 1987.<\/p>\n

“I am the minister responsible for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na. That’s why I apologised to them when they came into the Department of Justice to see me.<\/p>\n

“I know they met the Taoiseach last week and he did the same and that’s why there will be an apology.”<\/p>\n

\"Jason
\n(L-R) Survivors of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally. Jason Clancy, Barry Murphy, Colin Power, Kevin Keating and Paul Walsh<\/p>\n

However, Mr O’Callaghan rejected suggestions an apology should also be proffered on behalf of Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n

This came after Government Chief Whip Mary Butler apologised after Kenneally canvassed for her during the 2020 General Election, including calling to a cousin of one of his survivors.<\/p>\n

“If a senior person in an organisation does something wrong, the organisation does not become responsible for the wrongdoing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Callaghan indicated an apology would be discussed if the party was “aware or endorsed the behaviour”, which was not the case in relation to Fianna F\u00e1il and Kenneally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has confirmed a State apology will be offered to the survivors of convicted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-522851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522851","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=522851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}