The Church risks making itself redundant if it is unwilling to speak out on moral issues like Brendan Drumm's proposed bonus, a leading campaigner for homeless people said yesterday.

Alice Leahy, the director of Trust, a service for the homeless, said the bonus payment of €70,000 would further distance the chief executive of the HSE from patients and staff at the frontline. She was talking in the wake of the controversy over Drumm's bonus payment, to be awarded to him for his performance in 2007.

Addressing the annual seminar at the Church of Ireland Theological College, Leahy said: "Rewarding anyone for what amounts to successfully distancing himself from people, given the anger and dissatisfaction within the health service, on the part of many patients and staff will only ensure that the problems that exist will only get bigger. There is no denying we have a major financial crisis. However, to solve that problem, we must unite people and develop a real sense of shared purpose. At the moment, we are going in the opposite direction."

She added that "if the church does not speak out on moral issues of this nature it risks making itself redundant".

More than €4m was awarded in bonuses to managers across the public sector with a "staggering" €1.5m going to the HSE in 2007, she said.

"We must ask 'will this only serve to encourage managers to ignore the real needs of real people?'

"We have an impression that the Irish health service seems to be run on the principle that it would be more efficient if it did not have to provide treatment for people, given the dissatisfaction that exists on the part of patients and staff."