He was the most successful coach Irish swimming ever had. George Gibney had risen from coaching in a number of local clubs to running his own club, the Trojan club in Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock, Dublin, and to being the national coach, coaching the Irish Olympic team.
At the pinnacle of his career in 1989, one of the young swimmers he had coached, Gary O'Toole, won a silver medal in the European championships. But two years later, in February 1991, Gibney resigned as Ireland's Olympic coach.
Rumours were beginning to circulate about his sexual activities. Both male and female swimmers began to reveal how he had abused them. One of those to whom these revelations were made was Gary O'Toole, and he, along with another coach and a fellow swimmer, began collecting data and encouraging people to come forward. In February 1993, Gibney left the State, and four months later charges of indecency and carnal knowledge of girls under 15 were brought against him.
He fought this off by means of judicial review, claiming he could not get a fair trial because of the length of time since the alleged offences. He went on to coach young swimmers in Edinburgh, but was forced to leave there at the end of 1994 and went to the US.
However, he left behind him in charge of Irish swimming another man whose name would become a byword for child sex abuse - Derry O'Rourke, who coached in a school and club on the west side of the city. With the support of Gibney, he was appointed national coach in November 1991, and this was the man who accompanied the Irish Olympic swimming team to Barcelona in 1992.
But his triumph was short-lived. The school heard rumours about his activities, and he was suspended from the school, though he remained as coach in the club. In 1995 charges were laid against him.
He tried the same strategy as Gibney, seeking a judicial review on the grounds that the alleged offences were too old. He also insisted he would be contesting the charges. This time the strategy failed, and in January this year he pleaded guilty to a litany of sex abuse offences against young girl swimmers, and was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.
The early 1990s saw the disgrace of another leading figure in Irish swimming. Frank McCann was the former president of the Leinster branch of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association. In 1991 his house in Rathfarnham was burned down, killing his wife and 18-month-old niece, whom the couple had been trying to adopt.
In 1993 he was charged with their murder. It emerged during the trial that during the 1980s he had fathered a child with a 17-year-old swimmer, and that he had been sexually involved with another young swimmer at the time of his arrest. He was convicted of murdering his wife and niece.
This was the man to whom parents had gone with their concerns about Gibney. They complained he "sat on them".
According to the Murphy Report, serious allegations of abuse have been made against two other coaches, who are not named.
It is hardly surprising that many parents have been saying there is more than a coincidence about the level of child sex abuse in swimming, and that the organisation responsible for running it, the Irish Amateur Swimming Association, should explain why it did nothing about the allegations for so long.
When Derry O'Rourke was convicted, a group of parents went to the Minister for Tourism and Sport, Dr McDaid, seeking a judicial inquiry into sex abuse in swimming. Eventually he set up an independent, not a judicial, inquiry, under the chairmanship of Dr Roderick Murphy SC.
This inquiry could not compel witnesses, and relied on the voluntary co-operation of those it wished to interview. Twenty victims and 12 parents came forward, along with a number of officials from both the IASA and individual clubs.
This report details the history of the IASA, and its association with the international swimming body, FINA. It points out that FINA has no competence or responsibility in the area of protecting swimmers from abuse, as its obligations amount only to ensuring that there is a safety officer and a medical officer available to clubs, and that premises are suitable for competition.
Significantly, it points out that it is the IASA, not FINA, which has responsibility for the welfare of swimmers at meets outside the State. These occasions provided far greater opportunities for abuse than the normal routine of training and competition at home.
Nonetheless, those who came forward with allegations against Gibney and O'Rourke listed instances of sexual assault, including forced oral and vaginal sex, taking place in dressing rooms, offices, cars, car parks.
The Murphy Report, published last night, criticises the supervision of coaches in competitive swimming, and recommends they should be accompanied and that a female member of staff should be available to young girl swimmers. It stresses the need for proper selection of coaches, and setting out clearly their terms of employment.
It also recommends that children, their families and the association itself should be made more aware of child sex abuse, and that a hotline be set up.
It did not examine who knew what when, and who did, or did not, act on any information. There is no recommendation for root-and-branch changes in the IASA. Those who were hoping for someone to be held responsible have been disappointed - perhaps inevitably, given the nature of the inquiry. Once again, it remains an issue for the courts to deal with. Already some of the victims have started legal proceedings.
After O'Rourke was sentenced, Olympic medallist Michelle Smith de Bruin, who was coached, but not abused, by him asked: "Why did no one question if he should be allowed to take young girls on their own into the gym in the dark to hypnotise them, or to the pool for special attention? Why did no one question when he made lewd comments about the young girls?"
Why indeed?