DURING A LENGTHY post-budget press conference this afternoon, Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan played down reports that he stormed out of a budget meeting with Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers and brushed off criticism from an Irish language podcaster who said he is a “fucking eejit”.

In the lead-up to this year’s budget, O’Donovan found himself the subject of many news articles, with reports that he was locked in contentious arguments with both his junior minister Charlie McConalogue and the public expenditure minister. 

Last Friday, the Irish Examiner reported that O’Donovan walked out of a meeting with Chambers after just eight minutes because his budget requests were not being met.

O’Donovan made the €100 culture card for 16-year-olds a cornerstone of his budget asks this year, but the initiative, which would have cost between €7 and €8 million, was not greenlit by Chambers. 

Asked about the reports of a walkout today, O’Donovan said:

“When this press conference ends, regardless of however long or short it goes on I presume you will stand up from your seat and leave. I wouldn’t attribute that to being a walkout. 

“When a meeting ends, people naturally go about the rest of their lives.

“That’s what happens when a meeting ends.”

Separately, relations between O’Donovan and his junior minister for sport Charlie McConalogue have also reportedly soured in recent months.

The public row centred around which government party got to claim credit for new sports grants, with Fianna Fáilers unhappy Fine Gael TDs were beating them to the punch.

McConalogue and O'Donovan pictured today. Alamy Alamy

During an interview on Today with David McCullough on RTÉ Radio 1 last Friday, McConalogue failed to characterise relations with O’Donovan as “good” when asked. 

Asked today by a reporter if he was a liability to the government, given the number of arguments he has reportedly been involved in since he returned to work in September after a period of illness, O’Donovan said he did not “accept that assertion”.

“The most important group of people that have to like me are the people of County Limerick that gave us nearly 12,000 votes in the last election,” the minister said, adding:

“And after that, I have a job to do for the arts, culture, communications, media, and sports community in Ireland, given the seal of office that the president gave me to carry out my constitutional prerogatives.

“And if that means that I have to step on toes to stand up for the people who I am the minister with responsibility for, I’m sure that there’s other ministers that do that as well, and I’m not so sure that the word liability would attach to them.”

Asked how his relationship with Jack Chambers is, O’Donovan said it is “very good” and that they each have jobs to do and are both doing them.

On the timeline for the introduction of the culture card, O’Donovan said there are “things that we would have loved to have done this year, but we’ll get around to doing next year and the year after”.

“The concept of the culture card is not in any way going to be stopped,” he said. 

He added that he will be bringing a memorandum to government during 2027 on its development. 

It is worth noting, however, that Chambers said yesterday the card was “obviously” something that couldn’t be delivered next year.

Public sentiment

It was also put to O’Donovan that, given all the recent reports of arguments involving him, the public are “slightly exacerbated” by him. 

Specifically, it was put to him that during a recent episode of Irish language podcast How to Gael, during a discussion on comments O’Donovan made about Coimisiún na Meán, host Doireann Ní Ghlacáin said: 

“Can Patrick O’Donovan just take a day off from being a fucking eejit? Seriously?” 

Responding to this, the minister said he has been “called a lot worse than that”. 

“I’ve far more important things to answer than commentary like that. But I would like to say that the budget that I secured for the Department of Cultural, Communications and Sport will speak for itself,” he said, adding that it was “disappointing” that “very few” people raised his decision to continue funding for the basic income for the arts scheme.