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This set a tone for the following decades – but the existence of abuse could not be completely suppressed. Newspapers reported on court cases involving “indecent assault” or “unlawful carnal knowledge” of children. Kenneally told his therapist that he was attracted to women but didn’t believe he could have a relationship. He felt inadequate and unwanted. “He now recognises that he abused children because he didn’t feel threatened by them,” the intermediary says. James similarly has confused feelings about his brother. “He is about 14 years older than me and has learning difficulties. He’s a very good-looking man and could function in the real world, but he’s socially awkward and has limited intelligence.”

The Garda interviewed him, told him to obtain psychiatric treatment and stay away from the boys,” the intermediary says. “He stopped coaching basketball and says that he kept a low profile because he knew that he could be prosecuted, but he now wishes they had done so in the 1980s.” Being made to feel special adds to the child’s confusion, Sophie says. “ ‘This person is kind to me, but they do this thing that makes me feel terrible and scared.’ This can be so murky for children. Bill Kenneally, the imprisoned abuser, claims that he could have been stopped. “He’s not blaming society at all, and he fully accepts responsibility,” our intermediary says. “But he hopes that maybe, if potential child abusers had somewhere they could go for help before they committed a crime, it might help protect children from people like him.” Coming to terms with this and shaping a new debate around child sexual abuse are essential to protecting children.

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Our current image of child sex abusers in Ireland, and our approach to them, may be putting young people at risk. If we are to keep children safe we may have to gain a new understanding of the problem and make some unpalatable changes to the way we deal with it. Sophie’s story His brother did send him a written apology. “Was this enough for me? Nothing is enough. Chopping off his arms and legs would not be enough. I have realised that the only way through is acceptance and forgiveness. Not for him but because it is what I need.” Stop It Now! Like smoking cigarettes was considered safe and normal in its heyday, pornography is now having its heyday and many people, young and old, male and female, are hotly defending it as “normal.” Child sex abusers are around us; we just don’t know it. Eileen Finnegan is clinical director of One in Four and the manager of Phoenix, a treatment programme for sex offenders that the organisation sees as a core part of child protection.

Now I have a good relationship with my mum, but during my 20s she seemed to downplay it. I think people need to find the language to talk, at home and in schools, about good and bad intimacy. Kenneally did not abuse primarily because he was sexually attracted to the boys, much as a rapist is not overcome with lust. But, perhaps worse, like most sex offenders he was asserting power, control and dominance over people who could not defend themselves. Abusers are around us Mary Flaherty is chief executive of the Cari Foundation – also known as Children at Risk in Ireland – which provides therapy for sexually abused children. “In our 22 years of work we have seen victims who have been abused at home by a relative or a babysitter, or who have been abused by a neighbour or family friend,” she says. “One person was abused in a religious setting by a lay teacher.” Many more may be hebephiles, who are exclusively attracted to teenagers, while others may be men who are interested in adults but cross a line by abusing a person who is under 18,” he says. “They have distorted thinking and sometimes convince themselves that they’re teaching the child about sex.”The survivors of his crimes are suing the Garda and the State because they say that senior gardaí, staff at the South Eastern Health Board and members of Fianna Fáil knew about the sexual abuse in the 1980s but didn’t act.