Ireland’s Murphy Inquiry Said George Gibney’s Victims ‘Were Vindicated’ by the Garda’s Evidence. But There’s Vindication and There’s Vindication.

by Irvin Muchnick

As Irish politician Maureen O’Sullivan reaches out to sister American legislators for justice for George Gibney’s many victims and for accountability for the government agencies and swimming institutions that have enabled and harbored him, these words of Ireland’s 1998 Murphy Commission report weigh heavily:

“In light of the charges arising out of the Garda investigation the complainants were vindicated.”

In 2016 Concussion Inc. found an online link to the complete text of the document produced under the leadership of Justice Roderick Murphy. First Interim Report of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Sport and Recreation: Protection of Children in Sport: June 1998 is viewable at  http://opac.oireachtas.ie/AWData/Library3/Library2/DL046938.pdf. The references therein to Gibney are uploaded at http://muchnick.net/murphyongibney.pdf.

An official finding that Gibney was a serial rapist — not merely an accused rapist — is still no substitute for a criminal conviction.

But even if a criminal conviction proves not to be forthcoming, there is no excuse for continued failure by governments and journalists to examine the curious circumstances of Gibney’s 1994 diversity lottery visa and his continued resident alien status here even after a 2010 citizenship application — which seems to have failed precisely because he lied on it by withholding information about his 27-count indictment in Ireland for illicit carnal knowledge of minors.

There is, especially, no excuse for the Garda not to be directed to share with the state attorney of Hillsborough County, Florida, an affidavit that is known to exist by the victim of Gibney’s 1991 rape of a 17-year-old swimmer on a training trip to Tampa. Reporting by Justine McCarthy of London’s Sunday Times in 2015 revealed that the girl was impregnated in the incident and whisked by an Irish swimming official to England for a secret abortion.

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GEORGE GIBNEY FOIA SUIT SETTLES AS GOVERNMENT ADMITS DECISION NOT TO DEPORT IRISH OLYMPIC SWIM COACH AFTER DENYING U.S. CITIZENSHIP — PLUS OTHER NEW INFO