{"id":581965,"date":"2026-07-12T15:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/581965\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T15:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:12:16","slug":"patrick-odonovan-safe-and-well-and-recovering-with-family-after-falling-ill-in-brussels-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/581965\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick O\u2019Donovan \u2018safe and well\u2019 and recovering with family after falling ill in Brussels \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> has returned to Ireland after being taken to hospital while on official business in Brussels<\/a> last week. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan has previously spoken about his experience living with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with more than a decade ago. <\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for O\u2019Donovan on Sunday said the Minister was \u201chome since Friday night, safe and well and recovering with his family\u201d. <\/p>\n

It is not clear when he will resume his official duties. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan was attending a cultural event in Brussels on Tuesday night to mark the State\u2019s presidency of the Council of the European Union for the second half of this year.<\/p>\n

He became unwell after the event and was taken to hospital, where he remained under close medical observation for a number of days. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan<\/a> revealed last year he had been diagnosed with epilepsy in 2016 and has been managing the condition ever since. The Limerick politician has a photosensitivity that manifests as epilepsy.<\/p>\n

The Fine Gael<\/a> politician has previously talked about how he experienced \u201cviolent episodes\u201d in the run-up to the 2016 general election. He has also described how he sometimes struggled while speaking in media interviews or in the D\u00e1il as an episode could affect his speech.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year<\/a>, he told Newstalk his \u201cworst nightmare\u201d was that someone would question if he was drunk if he suffered an episode during an interview or public appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that I didn\u2019t speak openly before 2025 about my epilepsy was I was terrified that people wouldn\u2019t vote for me, and that my prospects of being promoted would hit the bin,\u201d he said in the interview. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan said his condition does not \u201cimpede\u201d him once it is managed. He said he had been \u201cashamed\u201d of his epilepsy because he was \u201cignorant of what it is to have a neurological condition\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan hospitalised during trip to BrusselsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan has returned to Ireland after being taken to hospital while on official business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,553,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,36103,7,8],"class_list":["post-581965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fine-gael","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-patrick-o-donovan","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116907655166385261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}