The chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance, Tanya Ward, said the victims of Bill Kenneally have done the country a major public service in bringing to light what happened to them and the failures in the investigation.
It was “very hard to get our heads around” the fact that Kenneally could have been investigated in 1987, Ward told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
Because of the failure to investigate him in 1987, there were more victims, she said, adding that it was “deeply disturbing” that he was not held to account until 2012.
“The fact that the survivors had to go public to tell their story, to campaign, to get this Tribunal of Accountability established, it was very important that the state did that.
"And I think what's really important for us and that we need to learn from it, is often the state doesn't want to establish Tribunals of Inquiry when you have major violations of rights at this point because it's expensive and it takes time.
“But it's really important to hear the survivors say that they feel vindicated because remember, this is one of the worst paedophiles to abuse and exploit children in the country.
“It was only fitting that we had a Tribunal of Inquiry established to investigate his crimes. Some of the senior gardaí involved in this case were found in this report to be in dereliction of their duty, that they failed to take appropriate action to stop Bill Keneally despite his admissions to them, that he was an abuser.
“Every time we have a Tribunal of Inquiry like this, it is a really important way for us as a country to learn what went wrong and to ensure it never happens again.”
It was really important to hear from survivors and to hear their response to this report, she said.
“What was really striking, not only did they say that they felt vindicated and that was really important, but they also said they needed more time to digest the findings.
"And we the public, when we hear these reports being published, we want to know the findings are, but we also want to know what the survivors think. And survivors need time sometimes to digest the findings.”
