Maurice Hayes (8 July 1927 – 23 December 2017) was an Irish public servant and, late in life, an independent member of the 21st and 22nd Seanads.

[3] He completed a PhD in English at the Queen's University Belfast, then taught at St Patrick's Grammar School in Downpatrick.

[4] He left teaching to become town clerk of Downpatrick the then administrative centre of County Down, succeeding his father in the role.

[5] Hayes was a former Northern Ireland Ombudsman and Boundary Commissioner, and was Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services.

[10] Hayes was also a long-serving non-executive director of Independent News & Media Plc, retiring in 2009 towards the culmination of a long running battle for control of the group between the O'Reilly family and Denis O'Brien led to a re-structuring of the Board.

[5] Hayes was asked by Mary Harney, when she was the Minister for Health in the Republic of Ireland, and the HSE to conduct a review into a scandal in the radiology department at Tallaght Hospital on the outskirts of Dublin.