The move by Ormeau Road man Sam Adair comes as another South Belfast abuse survivor dismissed as "meaningless," assurances that victims north and south of the border were on the agenda at this week's high-profile Vatican summit.

Ireland’s 24 Catholic bishops were summoned to Rome to meet Pope Benedict on Monday and Tuesday to discuss their response to the “heinous” child abuse scandal which the pontiff said had led to a breakdown in trust in the Church's leadership.

Widescale abuse in Catholic run institutions in the south of Ireland was documented in the Ryan Report last May.

However, frustrated by the lack of a full-scale abuse inquiry in the north, Sam Adair has made an official complaint to the Police Ombudsman's office.

The complaint, which was made last month, states the RUC should have done more to protect abuse victims.

Sam was just two-years-old when he was first taken from his Rutland Street home in 1966 and placed into the care of nuns at Nazareth Lodge.

Sam was in and out of the care home until 1972 when, aged just eight, he became a permanent resident of the Ravenhill Road establishment where he claims he suffered five years of physical, mental and emotional abuse.

Five years later, Sam was moved to Rubane House in the De La Salle Boys home at Kircubbin, Co Down where he suffered three more years of horrendous sexual and physical abuse by priests including notorious paedophile cleric Fr Brendan Smyth.

Sam claims he was interviewed by the then RUC in the late 1970s about the ongoing abuse in Kircubbin but that the boys' statements and desperate pleas for help were ignored.

Sam finally left the home in 1981 but it wasn't until more than a decade later that an abuse probe was launched. Fr Brendan Smyth was convicted of 17 counts of sexual abuse in a Belfast court in 1994.

"I spent decades in silence because I was ashamed by what I went through but years of counselling has taught me it's not my shame and it's not my guilt and I have finally plucked up the courage to speak out and seek justice," he said.

"I told RUC officers in 1977 some of what we were being subjected to in Kircubbin but no action was taken and we were left to suffer more abuse and to me, that amounts to neglect."

A police Ombudsman's office spokesperson confirmed it had received a complaint from Sam Adair.