Ross Hamilton, a son of the late Fr Michael Cleary says that he’d like Pope Francis to apologise to the “whole country” as well as victims of clerical abuse and the children of priests.

Priests who abused children “should have been shopped to the guards” he told RTÉ’s Today with Miriam show. Speaking about the church’s reaction to cases of abuse, he asked “where’s the love, where’s the compassion, where’s the kindness?”

Fr Cleary, who was among the best-known priests in Ireland and a champion of orthodox church teaching on sexuality, died at the end of 1993.

In 1995 it was revealed he had a son, Ross, with his housekeeper Phyllis Hamilton, who subsequently revealed the couple had previously given another son up for adoption.

Fr Michael Cleary with Phylis Hamilton and their son Ross

Mr Hamilton also told of how Archbishop Diarmuid Martin had “cut a cheque” for him earlier this year when he went to him seeking assistance.

He revealed that in recent months he has slept rough in a park, stayed in hostels and at present is “couch surfing” on a friend’s futon after he lost his job and his apartment when he injured his back.

When he lost his job his landlord did not want him to stay and would not accept HAP or for him to stay any longer as he would be eligible for security of tenure once he was in situ longer than six months.

He said it was very difficult to even get a viewing on rental properties and that he had been to only two in seven months and in each case there had been “a huge queue of people.”

Mr Hamilton defended his late father saying he was a “very kind, loving and caring man, who really did care for people.” He had found out the true nature of their relationship when he was 10, but that it had been more of a nephew/uncle relationship.

He admitted that he “went off the rails” in the years following the death of his father and had accepted money from the church to move out of the parochial house in which the family had lived.

As for the future, he hopes to find work and accommodation and to be involved in a documentary about the children of priests.