THE FINAL REPORT of the Commission of Investigation examining the years of sexual abuse perpetrated by Bill Kenneally and how complaints about his crimes were handled by authorities is due to be published later today. 

The final draft report was sent to the Minister and Secretary General at the Department of Justice in March. The final report will go to cabinet today before being published online at lunchtime.

This brings to a conclusion the eight-year public inquiry examining how State agencies and organisations handled reports of Keneally’s abuse.

Chaired by former high court judge Michael White, the Commission of Investigation examining how state agencies and organisations handled reports of his crimes started in 2018 and began hearing evidence in public in 2024. 

The report is expected to highlight failures to act on reports of Kenneally’s abuse within a number of organisations – including the gardaí, the health system and local political circles within Waterford.

It details several missed opportunities to expose his abuse, decades before he first came before a judge.

The report finds there is “no doubt Bill Kenneally received objectively favourable treatment” when his abuse first came to the attention of authorities in the 1980s.

The judge notes that the failure to conduct a proper investigation “was a clear and serious dereliction of duty” even by the standards of the time.

Survivors of Kenneally’s abuse received a copy of the report on Monday afternoon.

Kenneally – a former sports coach from Laragh, Summerville Avenue, Waterford – was also a tallyman for Fianna Fáil, and part of the powerful Kenneally political dynasty.

Now in his 70s, he was sentenced in 2016 to 14 years in prison for abusing ten boys from 1984 to 1987.

In May 2023, Kenneally also received a four-and-a-half-year sentence for abusing five boys between December 1979 and March 1990.

Public hearings 

Formed after a campaign by his victims, the inquiry heard from victims, senior gardaí, the clergy, the former South Eastern Health Board, a number of retired Fianna Fáil politicians and party members, as well as Bill Kenneally himself.

The campaign for a State inquiry began in 2016 in the wake of his initial sentencing.

Survivors of Kenneally’s abuse, who are represented by Phoenix Law, will hold a press conference in Dublin this afternoon.