Former Fianna Fáil TD and senator Dr Donie Ormonde has contradicted evidence given to the commission of inquiry examining child abuse by sports coach Bill Kenneally by former RTÉ journalist Damien Tiernan.
Dr Ormonde said it was not true that Monsignor John Shine, who was Kenneally's uncle, had asked him to keep certain matters out of the public.
Kenneally is serving a total of almost 19 years in prison for the abuse of 15 young boys in Waterford between 1979 and 1990.
In 2023, he was jailed for four-and-a-half years for abusing five boys.
That sentence will begin after he is finished serving a previous sentence of 14 years and two months for the abuse of ten other boys.
At the hearing this morning it was put to Dr Ormonde that Mr Tiernan's evidence suggested that Dr Ormonde told him, or that it was discussed, or he knew about contacts with Msgr Shine, to which Dr Ormonde said: "I knew nothing about that."
Dr Ormonde said the only conversation he ever had with the monsignor was when he asked him to secure a bed for his unmarried sister in a nursing home which Dr Ormonde was on the board of in Waterford.
He said that during the phone call, Msgr Shine brought up a recent Irish Times report about Kenneally, to which Dr Ormonde replied: "I’d rather not go there."
Dr Ormonde denied that he had arranged to meet Mr Tiernan in a hotel carpark, but said rather that he bumped into him by chance.
He also told the commission that he was never made aware of any allegations or complaints against Kenneally until they appeared in media reports.
Asked several times if he had spoken to Kenneally's mother - also known as Marie Shine - Dr Ormonde said he had never spoken to her in his life.
Dr Ormonde was further questioned by a lawyer for the majority of the victims, Barra McCrory, KC, who revisited the meeting in the carpark in March 2016 with Mr Tiernan.
Mr McCrory said the impression from Mr Tiernan was that there was a reason to meet in the carpark of the Tower Hotel in Waterford, which Mr Ormonde denied.
Dr Ormonde denied that the meeting was to discuss something sensitive, and said he could not remember if they conversed outside or in his car, as written in Mr Tiernan's notes.
Mr McCrory put it to Dr Ormonde that Mr Tiernan took a note saying that he had spoken to Marie Shine.
Dr Ormonde denied ever having spoken to or even meeting her.
Mr McCrory said perhaps he had gotten the Shine sisters mixed up, which Dr Ormonde denied, and said he got the other sister, whose name he had forgotten, a bed in the Havenwood nursing home a few weeks after speaking to Msgr Shine.
Mr McCrory asked Dr Ormonde if he could explain why Mr Tiernan, who he accepted was an experienced journalist, would have recorded that he spoke to Marie Shine, to which he responded, "no".
Mr Ormonde was asked if Msgr Shine would have known that he had contacts in the press, to which he replied, that having left politics years previously, he was "yesterday's man".
No recollection
A retired consultant psychiatrist told the commission of inquiry that he has no recollection of ever meeting the convicted child abuser.
Dr Richard Horgan contradicted evidence given to the commission earlier by retired TD for Waterford, Brendan Kenneally, who was Bill Kenneally's cousin.
Brendan Kenneally previously gave evidence that he had arranged for his cousin Bill to see Dr Horgan.
Dr Horgan's wife, Christine, who assisted him in his private practice, told the inquiry that she went through all the diaries and files and that Bill Kenneally never featured.
Ms Horgan told the commission that she did recall a visit by Brendan Kenneally to their family home for a meeting with Dr Horgan.
Dr Horgan said he only ever met Brendan Kenneally once, and that it was at his home.
He told Barra McCrory, counsel for some of Bill Kenneally's victims, that he remembered Brendan Kenneally visiting the house - and that he took a brief note afterwards.
Dr Horgan said he did not know Bill Kenneally even as a neighbour, and failed to recognise him from photographs shown to him.
When asked what the likelihood was of meeting Bill Kenneally as a patient and forgetting him, Dr Horgan said it was "highly unlikely".
It was put to Dr Horgan that Brendan Kenneally gave evidence that the psychiatrist had phoned him after an appointment with Bill Kenneally, saying he had not offended in some time and was unlikely to offend again.
Dr Horgan said you cannot guarantee that a person would not reoffend.
When it was put to Dr Horgan that Brendan Kenneally said there was a report which was positive in terms of Bill Kenneally’s unlikelihood of reoffending, he said: "My own view is that all forms of antisocial behaviour tend to be repeated."
