A former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator, who is a cousin of the convicted child abuser Bill Kenneally, has again been giving evidence at a Commission established in 2018, to examine the response of gardaí, politicians, clergy members, health board officials and others to the reported allegations about him.
Brendan Kenneally began his evidence to the Commission last month and was further questioned today at the Commission, which is sitting in the Dublin Dispute Resolution Centre on Church Street.
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.
His cousin, Brendan Kenneally, who was a TD and Senator between 1989 and 2011 today denied that he had been concerned with keeping the abuse quiet and that this was a case of him not wanting to know.
He also denied that he had done everything in his power to keep the abuse secret, including engaging a psychiatrist who had turned up late and met with Bill Kenneally for just 10 to 15 minutes.
Asked if he seriously thought an expert opinion could have been reached in this timeframe, he said he had put his faith in a professional man and he denied this had been a box-ticking exercise. He said he had thought at the time that this was the right thing to do.
He said he had taken a handwritten note during a meeting he had with a constituent on 29 August 2001 and that the family of that woman had not wanted him to get the gardaí involved.
He later received a letter from the same woman in which she said that the gardaí, Brendan Kenneally's father, Billy Kenneally, the priest Monsignor John Shine and a brother from De La Salle College in Waterford, knew of the abuse.
Asked by Barra McGrory Senior Counsel for a number of the victims, whether he should have enquired which gardaí this had been reported to, he said: "Perhaps I should have said that but I didn't."
He denied that the family had given him the excuse not to go to the gardaí.
He also said he had not asked Monsignor Shine, an uncle of Bill Kenneally's, what he knew and that perhaps with hindsight he should have.
Brendan Kenneally was asked questions about how he ran his constituency office in Waterford and said he had a piece of paper on which he kept a chronological note of his various exchanges with the woman who broad this case to his attention.
He said these notes were not given to his secretary to type up because of the sensitivity of the case. He said other information about his constituency was kept in 14 filing cabinets in his office which were then moved into his garage when he lost his seat as a TD in 2002. This piece of paper had been kept separately in a briefcase and he had later found it in a cupboard in his home.
"This piece of paper, I didn't know where it had gone until I found it a number of weeks ago," he told Mr McGrory. He had previously assumed he must have shredded it.
Brendan Kenneally told Ray Motherway, a barrister representing two other victims of Bill Kenneally, that he had had no reason to stay in his cousin's house. He said they met for basketball club events and for tournaments that took place just three or four times a year. He said juvenile tournaments would have usually involved leaving early in the morning and being back the same evening.
He agreed that Bill Kenneally had canvassed for him in 1989.
He said his cousin had never touched him in a sexually inappropriate way and that he did not recall him saying anything sexually inappropriate to him or others.
He agreed that Bill Kenneally had never been married or engaged and that he did not see him in the company of females. He said it was probably fair to describe him as a loner. Asked if he was an oddball he said: "I think that might be fair as well."
Brendan Kenneally said he had four children himself, the eldest of whom was now 40 and the youngest 25 and that they had barely known Bill Keannelly who never came to stay at the family's home.
Ray Motherway said at least one of the victims had described Bill Kenneally wearing lady's clothing when the abuse took place, but Brendan Kenneally said he had never seen his cousin dressed that way.
Brendan Kenneally was asked about a basketball tournament in Cork city in 1981 and said he had not found the programme relating to that event among a collection of sporting programmes at his home.
He was told that a then 15-year-old boy had given a harrowing account of being abused at a hotel after that event.
Brendan Kenneally said he had no recollection of a juvenile being with them at that event. He said if there was a 15-year-old boy in attendance, he would have had to have been accompanied by somebody.
Asked about canvassing in 1989, Brendan Kenneally said two people were sent to every door.
Asked if he had been informed in 2001 of the risk posed by Bill Kenneally to children and whether it sat well with him that he continued to canvass for him, he said he did not realise the extent of what he had done at this point.
He said he had had no contact with his cousin since he went to prison and that he did not ever want to have contact with him again.
He said Bill Kenneally had sent him a letter from Portlaoise prison quite some years ago which he had not read but he had no problem, if the Commission wanted it.
Commission chair Mr Justice Michael White, a retired high court judge, said the Commission had so far heard a lot of evidence and disputed evidence.
He asked whether as a TD, Brendan Kenneally would have been aware of 1998 legislation that protected those reporting child abuse, allowing them to do so in confidence.
He said he was, but did not have detailed knowledge of it.
The Commission is expected to sit again in January and will hear further evidence in private from victims of abuse and their families.
It also intends to call Bill Kenneally himself as a witness, which is likely to require an application in court.
