Patrick O’Donovan on epilepsy, politics and hitting rock bottom in Ireland’s health system

The arts minister reflects on epilepsy, misdiagnosis, stigma and why revealing his condition became unavoidable in public life

After collapsing in the Dáil in June 2023, Patrick O’Donovan was admitted to Beaumont Hospital. His neurologist diagnosed him with deep frontal lobe epilepsy. File Picture: Sasko Lazrov/Photocall Ireland/Department of Education

As he lay in a Dublin hospital bed in the hopes of seeing a neurologist, a junior doctor walked into the hospital room of Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan.

His epilepsy had been misdiagnosed several times at this point, with doctors telling him he was “working too hard” and was “tired”. He needed to “go home and get over it”.

He was starting to believe they were right.

As he sought to be transferred to his neurologist at Beaumont Hospital, the other Dublin hospital told Mr O’Donovan this would not be possible. They would check if they had someone on call.

It was at this point, Mr O’Donovan told the Irish Examiner, he hit “rock bottom”.

“A junior doctor came in to me and said, ‘We don't have a neurologist on call at the moment. You don't need a neurologist anyway. There's nothing wrong with you. But we have a psychiatrist on call’.”

The doctor walked back into the room a short time later and told Mr O’Donovan he had “found out” who he was. He “threw” a Post-it pad at him containing his name and Medical Council number. Mr O’Donovan never made a complaint.

He instead disconnected himself from the hospital machines, discharged himself, and boarded a Luas with his wife, Eileen.

He was initially diagnosed with epilepsy over a decade ago, but Mr O’Donovan has previously said that doctors continuously “disputed” this.

But, after collapsing in the Dáil in June 2023, he was admitted to the monitoring unit in Beaumont Hospital, where his neurologist diagnosed him with deep frontal lobe epilepsy.

On the day he got his diagnosis, it felt like “the bottom had fallen out of my world”.

I thought my job was gone. My ability to be able to function is gone. I'm going to wind up in a situation where I start having these seizures in public.

“The people won't vote for me. Will they vote for the disabled guy? Would they trust the disabled guy in politics?”

Mr O’Donovan said that since he started speaking about his epilepsy, people have been “very nice about it”.

However, as he sat in his Limerick office speaking to the Irish Examiner over video call, Mr O’Donovan reminisced about fears he felt a previous Christmas.

While a junior minister in the Department of Finance, Paschal Donohoe asked him to attend an event.

As he sat in the Westbury Hotel, his attention was often on the “psychedelic Christmas trees” littered around the room.

By the end of the presentation, Mr O’Donovan “sounded like somebody who was drunk”.

He continued: “I have always been worried that if I had an attack on a radio station, that someone, a political opponent or whatever, would put up a tweet, ‘Is Patrick O’Donovan drunk?’

“It’s a huge concern for me when I go on television.”

Only a handful of people in Leinster House were aware of Mr O’Donovan’s diagnosis.

However, shortly after he was appointed arts minister last January, comments about his perceived lack of interest in the sector appeared in newspapers.

One Irish Times columnist suggested that his name had been “pulled out of Micheál Martin’s hat” and that those in the sector “would have been hoping” that Hildegarde Naughton had gotten his job as she had “at least been known to darken the doors of a theatre occasionally”.

The comments infuriated Mr O’Donovan, who revealed his epilepsy diagnosis to a Sunday newspaper several months later.

He told the Irish Examiner he “totally was” forced into sharing the information.

“I didn't want to have to kind of speak openly about my health,” he said.

But I felt that the blaggarding I had gotten unfairly over not being the type of person that can go to a concert where there are flashing lights or things like that, I kind of felt that like I have a duty to stand up for myself here.

“There was a small group of people who were beginning to walk all over me.”

A year into this role in the Department of Culture, Communications and Sports, Mr O’Donovan said he believes he has “the best job in Government”.

“There isn't a day in the life of an Irish person that is not touched by my department,” he said.

By his own admission, things got off to a “ropey start”. Just a fortnight after being appointed, Mr O’Donovan told Cabinet that the 2023 annual report for the Arts Council contained details of a botched IT project that had seen €5.3m lost.

A report being carried out by Professor Niamh Brennan into the Arts Council is ongoing and will be completed “shortly”.

There are other parts of the department, including commemorations, Irish history and sport, that he “absolutely loves”.

There is a “huge year” coming up for sport, he said, with the Irish Open heading to Doonbeg and preparations for next year’s Ryder Cup in Adare continuing. There is also work underway to secure a second NFL game in Dublin following the success of last year’s Croke Park showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings.

Mr O’Donovan’s “number one priority” for 2026 will be on social media age verification. It is expected that Ireland’s EU presidency this year will put a strong emphasis on the subject.

He accused Europe of having “failed children” when it comes to social media, as he accused the parliament of “spending most of their time talking about innocuous things that are only trying to make life difficult for people to be citizens of the EU”.

He added: “Europe is the big problem here. Europe is the tolerant godparent that isn’t actually acting in a functional way to protect any of us.

“I shouldn't have to do what I'm doing. The European Commission should have to do it.”