The Taoiseach has issued a formal State apology to survivors of serial paedophile Bill Kenneally in the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Taoiseach I apologise unreservedly, on behalf of the State, to the victims of Bill Kenneally for what was a clear and serious dereliction of duty,\u201d Miche\u00e1l Martin said.<\/p>\n
Referring to Fianna F\u00e1il TDs related to Kenneally, he added: \u201cI am profoundly sorry that two former public representatives from my party so comprehensively failed to defend and protect young children from their nephew and cousin\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no question about the duty public representatives have to put the safety of others first, and I repeat the fact that two TDs, Billy Kenneally Snr and Brendan Kenneally failed in that duty to the victims of Bill Kenneally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey failed the victims by putting their own relative first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenneally died in prison days after the commission was published while serving almost 20 years for the indecent assault of 10 boys at various locations in Waterford in the 1980s. <\/p>\n
The Taoiseach said \u201cmany of those victims, who I have had the honour of meeting on a number of occasions, are here today with their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou waived your anonymity in order to ensure that the heinous crimes of Bill Kenneally were exposed and that other young boys were protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apologising, he named them individually: \u201cJason Clancy, Paul Walsh, Kevin Keating, Colin Power, Barry Murphy, Simon O\u2019Toole, and Gerard Mullane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin said \u201cthere were also many other victims of Bill Kenneally who were witnesses before the Commission of Investigation and who wished to remain anonymous\u201d.<\/p>\n
There were 22 such witnesses, according to the report. \u201cI want to say that we fully understand and respect their wishes and to emphasise that we apologise to each of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also regret to say that there are, no doubt, victims who decided silently and understandably that they did not wish to give evidence about how they were abused. To those unknown men I also extend a deep and sincere apology.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said no words from Government could make up \u201cfor the theft of childhood from so many young boys, for the appalling abuse they suffered, and the enormous trauma they have experienced in their lives as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we must acknowledge the failings that led to these awful outcomes, in recognition of the horrific experiences, and the bravery, of his victims; and also to ensure that it can never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted that the failure of two senior garda\u00ed \u201cto conduct a proper investigation into the activities of Bill Kenneally was a clear and serious dereliction of duty even by the standards of the time in 1987\u201d.<\/p>\n
T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said \u201csystems of church, State, and society that should have safeguarded children, failed in their most basic and profound duty\u201d.<\/p>\n
Paying tribute to the survivors he pointed to the failure of the authorities to bring Kenneally to justice even after he \u201cmade admissions of his terrible crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t brought to justice, and he was allowed to continue to abuse children\u201d.<\/p>\n
The truth emerged because \u201csurvivors refused to give up. Faced with disbelief, silence, intimidation, and enormous personal trauma, they persisted\u201d.<\/p>\n
In advance of the remarks, victims expressed hope for an \u201cunequivocal and comprehensive\u201d apology from the State as they gathered outside Leinster House.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a feeling of relief. It\u2019s been a long journey for us over the last ten years,\u201d said Colin Power before entering the D\u00e1il visitors\u2019 gallery alongside five other survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s recognition of the journey we\u2019ve been on. And I hope the apology is unequivocal and comprehensive, because that\u2019s what this deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The State apology \u201cwas never on our radar\u201d, Power said. \u201cI may be speaking for myself now, but I didn\u2019t really know what a State apology was up to four to six weeks ago. I know there\u2019s very few of them given out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenneally was found guilty of the abuse of 15 children between 1979 to 1990. He pleaded guilty to these charges in 2015 and again in 2022. He was sentenced to 19 years in jail and died in prison last month, having served just over 10 years of his sentence. <\/p>\n
Jason Clancy, who was the first to make a formal complaint against Kenneally, stood next to Power and paid tribute to the dozens of family members gathered with them on Kildare Street. \u201cThey\u2019ve been on this journey with us for the last 13 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve seen the lows, the highs, the tears\u2026 so it\u2019s so important for them, as well, because it\u2019s not just about us, it\u2019s also about our families.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know there\u2019s hundreds of victims in Waterford from Bill Kenneally, and this is important for them as well. It\u2019s not just about us, we carry them in our hearts today as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach has issued a formal State apology to survivors of serial paedophile Bill Kenneally in the D\u00e1il.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,210811,61,60,1843,43],"class_list":["post-549449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-bill-kenneally-inquiry","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549449","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=549449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}