{"id":653563,"date":"2026-10-13T15:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/653563\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:50:09","slug":"minister-for-communications-patrick-odonovan-taken-ill-at-eu-presidency-event-in-limerick-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/653563\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan taken ill at EU presidency event in Limerick \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> has taken ill at an EU presidency event in Limerick.<\/p>\n

A press conference planned for this afternoon has been cancelled. It is understood that the Minister has been hospitalised. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for O\u2019Donovan said: \u201cThe Minister became unwell during the EU informal meeting at the University of Limerick and has been taken off site for assessment and treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan had appeared shortly before 1pm at a so-called \u201cfamily photograph\u201d of the delegate ministers attending the informal meeting, standing alongside European Commmission executive vice president Henna Virkkunen for the photocall. <\/p>\n

Earlier, O\u2019Donovan hit back against critics within his own party, accusing those who commented on his health of \u201cthe ultimate in betrayal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Limerick on Tuesday morning as he prepared to host an informal meeting of EU telecommunications ministers, O\u2019Donovan responded to briefings against him in coverage of the budget rows he became embroiled in last week.<\/p>\n

In addition to questions over his temperament, one Fine Gael<\/a> TD was quoted at the weekend suggesting that people within the parliamentary party were questioning whether O\u2019Donovan was healthy enough to continue in his role.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan, who is Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, was hospitalised<\/a> after becoming unwell during an official trip to Brussels this summer. <\/p>\n

He has previously spoken about his experience living with epilepsy<\/a>, which he was diagnosed with more than 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan reportedly cancelled a planned trip to Strasbourg last week after his team concluded that he was not well enough to travel. He met RT\u00c9<\/a> executives the following day. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, O\u2019Donovan criticised an \u201canonymous source on the front page of a reputable Sunday paper last week calling into question my health … that source was attributed to my own party\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only was that commentary a slap in the face of me, but it was also a slap in the face of the people who have to live with conditions far worse than mine and conditions far more difficult than mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no difficulty what people think of me on a political basis \u2013 don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ll hold my own with anybody, but leave my health out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cLast Sunday wasn\u2019t anything to do with epilepsy. Last Sunday was the ultimate in betrayal.\u201d He said it was a betrayal not just of him, but of others with disabilities or neurological conditions.<\/p>\n

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O\u2019Donovan has been at the centre of a post-budget controversy after first failing to secure funding to support his heavily-publicised \u201cculture card\u201d initiative<\/a> for 16- and 17-year-olds, and then providing RT\u00c9 with \u20ac20 million less<\/a> in funding than agreed under the terms of a 2024 deal with the troubled national broadcaster. <\/p>\n

After the budget, it emerged that O\u2019Donovan had written to Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers<\/a> warning him that without extra funding allocated to his department, several spending areas would suffer from cutbacks or shortfalls \u2013 including that the Government faced reneging on its agreement with RT\u00c9. <\/p>\n

He ultimately secured an extra \u20ac21 million in funding for his department, but still left RT\u00c9 short relative to the 2024 agreement that had guaranteed the broadcaster \u20ac260 million in funding next year \u2013 sparking a furious reaction in Montrose and an intense period of controversy, which had to be defused by the intervention of Coalition leaders. <\/p>\n

This in turn spawned much media coverage and commentary over last weekend about O\u2019Donovan, and other recent clashes he has had with stakeholder organisations or political colleagues.<\/p>\n

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O\u2019Donovan told reporters on Tuesday that he was answerable to the voters of his Co Limerick constituency and to the Government. \u201cAny day that I feel that I can\u2019t continue in the role that I\u2019m in, I\u2019d gladly hand back that seal of office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the controversy with RT\u00c9, O\u2019Donovan said he was not personally involved in the matter at present, leaving it to officials whose work is ongoing. He said he had \u201cno notion of going anywhere\u201d following the controversies of the last few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan has taken ill at an EU presidency event in Limerick. A press conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3775,61,60,13808,43,6232,6085],"class_list":["post-653563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fine-gael","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jack-chambers","tag-news","tag-patrick-o-donovan","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}