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23 Oct 2025

Limerick Minister reveals challenges around condition which caused him to collapse in Dail

Patrick O'Donovan has battled epilepsy for almost 20 years

Limerick Minister reveals challenges around condition which caused him to collapse in Dail

Minister Patrick O’Donovan photographed last year with his wife Eileen and their children John, Mae and Nel | PICTURE: BRENDAN GLEESON

LIMERICK TD and Minister for Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport Patrick O’Donovan has spoken for the first time about his battle with epilepsy, a condition he’s lived with for 15 to 20 years.

The Fine Gael TD, who became Limerick County’s first senior cabinet minister in a generation last year, lifted the lid in an interview with the Irish Independent newspaper.

READ MORE: 270 Limerick residents granted Irish citizenship at Killarney ceremonies

There were huge concerns for the father-of-three’s health locally and nationally when, two years ago this week, he collapsed on the floor of Leinster House, while answering a question in the Dail chamber. It meant Leinster House had to be shut down for the remainder of the day

Now, he has revealed he suffered a massive epileptic seizure.

He was treated in Beaumont Hospital, before spending the summer recovering at his family home in Newcastle West, with wife Eileen and their three children, John, Mae and Nel.

It’s the first time the 48-year-old has actually spoken about his condition.

Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes recurring, unprovoked seizures.

“I’ve been living with it for the last 15 or 20 years and have been getting on with my life,” he told the Independent.

But he did highlight how he has to approach things perhaps differently to his cabinet colleagues - even when it comes to speaking at certain locations.

“It’s a very debilitating condition I have, to be quite honest about it,” he candidly states.

“I have a particular disability that prevents me from going into darkened rooms and prevents me from going into places with flashing lights. I have a photo sensitivity that manifests itself into epilepsy, and I have to be very careful when I speak in public, the type of auditoria I go into,” he said.

Mr O’Donovan says his condition has led to many people making what he feels are preconceptions.

“When somebody who doesn’t know me, or doesn’t know the sky over me, and has never spoken to me, makes a preconceived notion about me on the basis of a disability, I don’t think that is fair game,” he said.

A teacher by profession, Mr O’Donovan first got into representative politics in 2004, being elected to the old Limerick County Council.

In 2011, he beat William O’Donnell - widely considered a favourite - to run for Fine Gael at that year’s General Election, where he prevailed.

He returned in the General Elections of 2016, 2020 and 2024.

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