Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan has returned to Ireland after being taken to hospital while on official business in Brussels last week.
O’Donovan has previously spoken about his experience living with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with more than a decade ago.
A spokeswoman for O’Donovan on Sunday said the Minister was “home since Friday night, safe and well and recovering with his family”.
It is not clear when he will resume his official duties.
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O’Donovan was attending a cultural event in Brussels on Tuesday night to mark the State’s presidency of the Council of the European Union for the second half of this year.
He became unwell after the event and was taken to hospital, where he remained under close medical observation for a number of days.
O’Donovan 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.
The Fine Gael politician has previously talked about how he experienced “violent episodes” 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 Dáil as an episode could affect his speech.
Earlier this year, he told Newstalk his “worst nightmare” was that someone would question if he was drunk if he suffered an episode during an interview or public appearance.
“The reason that I didn’t speak openly before 2025 about my epilepsy was I was terrified that people wouldn’t vote for me, and that my prospects of being promoted would hit the bin,” he said in the interview.
O’Donovan said his condition does not “impede” him once it is managed. He said he had been “ashamed” of his epilepsy because he was “ignorant of what it is to have a neurological condition”.
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