Garda Commissioner apologises for 'significant failures' investigating Bill Kenneally
By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association
The Garda Commissioner has apologised for “significant failures” in investigating paedophile Bill Kenneally.
The apology comes more than a month after a major report found a “clear and serious dereliction of duty” on behalf of gardaí investigating the paedophile.
Kenneally, in his early 70s and formerly of Summerville Avenue, Waterford city, died in prison last month after pleading guilty to 10 sample counts of indecently assaulting 10 boys at various locations in Waterford in the 1980s.
The predator gave evidence to a Commission of Investigation into his abuse, where he said he had told two senior gardaí in the boardroom of a Garda station on December 30th, 1987 “what I was doing”.
It found the failure on behalf of acting Chief Superintendent Sean Cashman, and to a “lesser extent” acting Superintendent PJ Hayes after December 1987, to conduct a proper investigation into the activities of Kenneally, was a “clear and serious dereliction of duty even by the standards of the time”.
The Commission’s report said that gardaí had enough evidence to arrest Kenneally on suspicion of false imprisonment and indecent assault by the time this interview took place, and to search his house and car.
At the time, he was in possession of Polaroid images of naked boys in his home and car, the report said.
At the meeting on December 30th, 1987, Kenneally was not cautioned, proper notes were not taken, the investigation was not properly established and no file was created.
One of the officers also had a conflict of interest as he was “a close friend” of Kenneally’s uncle, Monsignor John Shine, and should have recused himself from the investigation.
On the day the report was published in June, An Garda Síochána said its thoughts were with the “victims of this terrible abuse” and that it had since “invested significantly in the investigation of domestic and sexual abuse”.
However, it said it would “need time to review” the report “before commenting on it”.
It repeatedly declined to comment on the report in the following week.
On Tuesday, more than a month after the report’s publication, Commissioner Justin Kelly said An Garda Síochána “fully accepts” the findings of the South East Commission of Investigation.
It came shortly after Taoiseach Micheál Martin offered a State apology to the victims in the Dáil.
Mr Kelly noted the commission said the quality of the second investigation, which resulted in guilty pleas, was “superb” and did not contain any mala fides or cover-up on the part of An Garda Síochána – although it had not proceeded with expedition.
He said: “An Garda Síochána acknowledges and regrets that victims Jason Clancy and A7 were not communicated with properly in the initial stages of this second investigation.”
"As Garda commissioner, I wish to offer my personal apology to the victims of Bill Kenneally for the significant failures of An Garda Síochána, we fell far short of what is expected of us.”
