Notorious defrocked Irish paedophile priest Oliver O'Grady is to receive a pension worth $100,000 from next month despite admitting to abusing at least 25 young boys and girls.

The Sunday Tribune can reveal that O'Grady – described as the "Hannibal Lecter of the clerical world" – will be paid a pension of $800 a month starting on 5 June, when he turns 65.

The Catholic church in California agreed to pay him a pension for ten years despite O'Grady having admitted to a catalogue of abuse for which he received a 14-year jail sentence.

The deal was reached in exchange for O'Grady declining to give evidence against senior church figures who covered up his abuse by moving him from parish to parish. As part of the agreement, O'Grady also agreed voluntarily to cease being a priest.

In affidavits given by O'Grady, who is from Tipperary, he revealed how he still expected to remain as a serving priest even after his years of abuse were revealed.

"What I envisaged was perhaps being a priest who was inactive and maybe being allowed to function with some basic rights, such as to celebrate mass, possibly hear confessions and to be able to function in that way," he said.

O'Grady was released from prison in California in 2000 and was deported back to Ireland, where he lived until last year.

Last week this newspaper revealed O'Grady had moved to the Netherlands, where he acted as a church deacon and helped out at a shelter for vulnerable women and their children. Calling himself 'Brother Francis', O'Grady watched over christening services and worked at a major fast-food chain in Rotterdam where he helped to organise children's parties.

After Dutch police learned of his whereabouts, O'Grady fled the country and was photographed a fortnight ago outside a hostel in Dublin's south city centre, where he is staying.