{"id":655583,"date":"2026-10-15T14:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655583\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T14:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:46:10","slug":"patrick-odonovan-remains-in-intensive-care-after-taking-ill-on-tuesday-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655583\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick O\u2019Donovan remains in intensive care after taking ill on Tuesday \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> remains in intensive care in hospital after being taken ill on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It is understood he is being cared for in University Hospital Limerick<\/a>. He was hospitalised after being taken ill while hosting an informal meeting of EU<\/a> telecoms ministers.<\/p>\n

A planned press conference was cancelled on Tuesday afternoon and he was taken to hospital by ambulance. <\/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

Before being hospitalised on Tuesday, the Co Limerick TD had hit back against critics within his own party, accusing those who commented on his health of \u201cthe ultimate in betrayal<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

He was responding to briefings against him in coverage of the budget<\/a> rows he became embroiled in last week.<\/p>\n

In addition to questions over his temperament, a 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

A Cabinet source in the party was quoted as suggesting a discussion on if he was \u201cwell enough\u201d to stay in his role was likely.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan had 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.<\/p>\n

Then, he was again in the headlines after 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan remains in intensive care in hospital after being taken ill on Tuesday. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5168,5148,3775,42,1396,43,6232,40,38,41,39,17229],"class_list":["post-655583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-budget","tag-european-union","tag-fine-gael","tag-headlines","tag-limerick","tag-news","tag-patrick-o-donovan","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-university-hospital-limerick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655583","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=655583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}