FORMER national swimming coach George Gibney was a member of two state boards at a time when swimmers' accusations that he had raped them as children were going unheeded.

In self-imposed exile in the United States for the past decade, Gibney wriggled out of 17 charges of child rape in the early 1990s by arguing that the alleged incidents were too long ago for him to defend himself. Many of his victims have long suspected that Gibney must have had powerful connections to get into the US, one of the most difficult countries in the world to enter legally, especially for someone with paedophile allegations hanging over them.

The impression that the gregarious coach had friends in high places is exacerbated by the revelation that he was appointed to two state boards after the Fianna F�il/PD government came to power in 1989. As Minister for Education, Mary O'Rourke signed off on his appointments to the Irish Coaching Bureau and the selection committee, whose brief was to choose "outstanding sports persons" for the awarding of state grants. The job of the Irish Coaching Bureau was to devise curriculums and define the roles of sports coaches. Both boards fell within the remit of the Department of Sport, where the minister at the time was Frank Fahey.

Gibney, who received an emolument from the taxpayer for his membership of the prestigious boards, counted a garda sergeant among his fellow board members. The garda investigation into the allegations of rape by seven male and female swimmers began on 15 December 1992. Twenty-two months earlier, in February 1991, one of those swimmers had informed the president of the Leinster branch of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association, Frank McCann, that Gibney had raped him when he was 11 years old. McCann, now in jail on a double murder conviction, did nothing about the complaint.

In the lacuna after walking away from the first set of charges and before a second set of complainants went to garda�, Gibney attended a swimming gala and children's coaching session at an IASA-affiliated club in April 1995.

'We were more innocent then' "I don't know if he was carrying out his activities then, " said Senator Mary O'Rourke when asked about her appointment of George Gibney. "I suppose in those days we were more innocent. We know so much more now."

While criminal procedures to pursue Gibney have been suspended by the state, two former swimmers who have made formal statements to garda� alleging rape by Gibney have initiated civil legal actions for damages against the Irish Amateur Swimming Association (IASA), renamed Swim Ireland since the jailing of Derry O'Rourke. (These claims are in addition to the 15 cases being taken against the association by victims of O'Rourke. ) One of the two swimmers suing in relation to Gibney was among four people who came forward to make fresh allegations against him in 1996. By then, the Supreme Court had ruled in his favour in relation to the first set of seven rape charges, and that prosecution had been discontinued in September 1994. The young woman claims that Gibney locked her in a hotel room during a club training camp in Florida in 1991 and raped her. As a consequence, the woman has suffered appalling psychological problems throughout her adult life.

The allegations by the four new complainants were investigated by garda� in Blackrock, Co Dublin (whereas it was the sexual assault unit at garda metropolitan headquarters at Harcourt Square that investigated Derry O'Rourke). To the complainants' shock and dismay, the file came back from the DPP with a decision not to seek Gibney's extradition from the US to face trial, on the grounds that the evidence against him was insufficient.

The exact nature of this second investigation is difficult to establish. The Garda Press Office refuses to provide information on the grounds that it does "not discuss individual cases", and the garda who led the inquiry has since retired. Alarmingly, one of the victims who made statements for the investigation says she believes the allegations were never formally put to Gibney and she is not aware that any garda travelled to the US to confront him about them.

It is not hard to locate Gibney, who is now using the name Jon or John Gibney. It took the Intercoastal Investigations private detective agency in San Francisco 24 hours to find him for the Sunday Tribune this week. In a cruel twist, he has returned to Florida, where he allegedly raped the young swimmer 16 years ago.

Last January, Gibney secured a $150,000 loan from Bank of America to buy a condominium costing $154,900 in a new development at Orange City, "a city with the ambience of a town", in tourism sales-speak, located half an hour's drive from Orlando and its major attraction, Disney World. A 1995 four-door Honda Accord LX is registered in his name, bearing a Colorado licence plate, number 924 MXM.

When the state successfully applied for the extradition of celebrity chef Conrad Gallagher from New York in 2003 on charges of stealing paintings from a Dublin hotel (he was acquitted), a leading campaigner against child abuse in swimming, Bart Nolan, wrote to justice minister Michael McDowell. "If you can bring Conrad Gallagher back for three paintings, why can't you bring George Gibney back for seven rapes?" he asked. He received a standard acknowledgement of his letter from the minister's private secretary.

RTE's resident Olympic panellist Bespectacled and low-sized with a manicured goatee, George Gibney was a flamboyant figure. As national and Olympics (Seoul 1988) swimming coach, he exerted enormous influence. He was a member of the IASA's technical committee, where he had the casting vote in selecting swimmers for the national team.

He was RT�'s resident panellist during the Barcelona Olympics and secures a degree of fame by helping the former television presenter Bibi Baskin to overcome her fear of swimming.

Gibney resigned as director of swimming of the IASA in May 1990, ostensibly due to pressure of work commitments, but rumours circulated in the sport that his departure was prompted by a financial scandal. He had previously been sacked by a south Dublin swimming club where, it is now believed, he sexually assaulted two underage swimmers.

He received a golden handshake on leaving that club and qualified for statutory redundancy of �2,800 when he left his last Dublin club under the cloud of a garda investigation.

According to the Murphy report, published in 1998, which never actually named Gibney:

"His contract was terminated, not for this reason [child abuse], as the club committee were not then aware of any allegation of abuse, but because of insubordination and lack of accountability to the committee regarding the number of swimmers attending and the return of fees paid."

The Murphy report further noted that Gibney "said he had no records for the club [Trojans, which he founded] for the 1970s and he used this as a ground to prevent criminal charges, yet swimmers who gave evidence spoke of the detailed swimming records he kept, the meticulous manner in which he dealt with his training programme at the time and indeed the articles written by him at the time in the Swimming Times".

Buying property and cars When he left Ireland after the first set of allegations collapsed in 1994, Gibney moved to Scotland. When it was discovered that he was coaching juvenile swimmers at Warrender Swimming Club in Edinburgh, he fled to the US. In the intervening years, he has lived a life of looking over his shoulder while also managing to buy property and cars, secure various jobs across the US and form relationships with at least two women. He has worked as a sports coach in Salt Lake City, for Frontier Airlines in Denver and in a five-star ranchstyle hotel in Calistoga, California. He has had various addresses in Utah, Colorado and California, where he was last tracked down by RTE's Prime Time.

The following contribution to an ongoing discussion about Gibney's presence in the US was posted on an Irish-American blog last week.

"Trust me, I've spoken to the highest government officials with whom I have a relationship and they want him gone too. Whenever someone found out that he was involved in a youth organisation or appeared to be 'grooming' another single mother, word was silently sent. He is being watched? one mis-step and he'll surely be sent back. If Ireland would issue a warrant, he'd be gone. Just bringing up his name makes our skin crawl."