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Bill Kenneally inquiry: Former RTÉ journalist gives evidence of key meeting

The Commission of Investigation is looking at the response of State and other agencies to allegations against former sports coach Kenneally, who pleaded guilty to child sex abuse in Waterford

Damien Tiernan, at the Hickson Commission hearing into Bill Kenneally, on Church Street, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times

Sarah Burns
Mon Mar 11 2024 - 17:13

A former RTÉ journalist has told a State inquiry that former Waterford TD Dr Donie Ormonde “definitely” said he was asked to help suppress discussion in the media about convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally.

Damien Tiernan told the Commission of Investigation on Monday “there is no way I would make this up” and that “I deal in facts”.

The State investigation into Kenneally’s case will hear from the former sports coach and Fianna Fáil tallyman for the first time on Tuesday.

The commission is investigating the response of State and other agencies to allegations against Kenneally, who pleaded guilty in late 2015 and again in 2022 to multiple cases of child sex abuse in Waterford.

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Kenneally (72), of Laragh, Summerville Road, Waterford and a member of a well-known Fianna Fáil family, is currently in jail for the abuse of 15 children between 1979 and 1990.

Dr Ormonde told the commission in January that it was not true that he had told Mr Tiernan, RTÉ's former southeast correspondent, in 2016 that he had been asked to help suppress discussion in the media of Kenneally by the sports coach’s uncle, Monsignor John Shine.

Speaking this afternoon, Mr Tiernan confirmed he had previously given evidence to the commission last September but wanted to come back to “clarify any matters arising” and had a “clear recollection” of what happened.

Mr Tiernan said he had presented his handwritten notes to the commission of a conversation he had with Dr Ormonde in the car park of the Tower Hotel in Waterford in March 2016.

He again confirmed that during that meeting the former TD disclosed that Msgr Shine had called him in 2013, soon after a report about Kenneally had appeared in The Irish Times, and asked him to help keep some matters out of the media.

Mr Tiernan said it was not “a chance meeting” with Dr Ormonde and that he wouldn’t have brought his notebook with him if it had been.

He said Dr Ormonde’s evidence was “completely contrary to my contemporaneous notes and my clear recollection”.

“I specifically remember Donnie Ormonde telling me that Monsignor Shine had phoned him to say the story was breaking ... and he asked Donnie Ormonde to see if he could help keep it out of the media,” Mr Tiernan said.

“And Donnie Ormonde said he wasn’t going to be able to do that. Donnie Ormonde told me that, he specifically told me that.”

Mr Tiernan said it was not credible that he would “create this” and there was no reason to and that he remembered the conversation distinctly as it was “so left-field”.

He said he was a journalist of many years, had won awards and that an RTÉ documentary on Kenneally’s case had not in any way been disputed or the research that went into it.

Mr Tiernan also said that after he gave evidence last September he had texted Dr Ormonde to tell him that he had raised him in the commission.

Dr Ormonde, a retired consultant radiologist, was a Fianna Fáil TD for Waterford from 1982 to 1987 and a senator between 1989 and 1993. He was also a member of the South Eastern Health Board and a former chairman of the Havenwood Nursing Home in Waterford.

Speaking earlier, Waterford businessman Tom Murphy said he and his wife were “shocked to our foundations” to discover in 2016 their son Barry was abused by Kenneally.

Mr Murphy told the commission that he had seen Kenneally on two occasions on Saturday afternoons with four or five teenagers getting into his car, none of whom had any sports gear with them.

He said he thought it was “odd” and “didn’t feel right” and had written a letter to Ernst & Young in Waterford in 1987, where Kenneally worked at the time.

Mr Murphy also said that he went to Waterford Garda station on another date to complain about Kenneally who he had heard had been cleared, despite allegations being made about him. He initially said he wasn’t sure what prompted him to go to the station but later clarified maybe it was because he had heard of a young man being abused by Kenneally and that his family had contacted gardaí.

Mr Murphy said he was told by gardaí at the time that the family did not want to pursue the prosecution.

Mr Murphy told the commission that he had spent too much time on his business and not enough on “domestic matters” which he felt guilty about to the present day.

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns is a reporter for The Irish Times

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