In government
Minister of State
On 19 May 2016, following the 2016 general election and the formation of minority Fine Gael government led by Enda Kenny, O'Donovan was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport with responsibility for Tourism and Sport. [6]
On 20 June 2017, following the appointment of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach, he was appointed by the new government as Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and at the Department of Finance with responsibility for Public Procurement, Open Government and eGovernment. [7] In August 2017, he claimed in an interview with the Sunday Independent , that the Provisional IRA were responsible for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. [8] Fine Gael declined to comment on the matter. [9]
On 1 July 2020, he was appointed by the new government formed after the 2020 general election led by Micheál Martin as Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, with responsibility for the Office of Public Works. [10]
In December 2022, following the appointment of Leo Varadkar as taoiseach, he was re-appointed to the same post, as well as the post of Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media with special responsibility for the Gaeltacht. [11] On 29 June 2023 he was hospitalised after collapsing in the chamber of Dáil Éireann. [12] [13] Ten weeks later he had recovered sufficiently to resume his post. [14] He later ascribed the incident to undiagnosed photosensitive epilepsy. [15]
Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport
On 23 January 2025, O'Donovan was appointed as Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport in the government led by Micheál Martin, following the 2024 general election. [18]
In December 2025, O'Donovan proposed new measures requiring social media users to verify their age with a government smartphone app before accessing platforms such as Facebook and Instagram in order to protect children from pornographic material and other adult content online. [19] [20] These proposals were met with strong criticism from civil liberty and digital privacy campaigners, as well as legal and digital experts. Critics described the plans as disproportionate, intrusive and potentially illegal, however O'Donovan responded by emphasising the importance of child protection. [21] [22]
On 19 December 2025, O'Donovan accused one of his predecessors, Shane Ross, of setting back the role of women in Irish sport by "about 20 years". [23] [24]
On 4 January, O'Donovan and Simon Harris announced the introduction of a new tax credit for “unscripted programmes”, which would include the likes of game shows and reality TV. [25]
On 8 January 2026, O'Donovan faced criticism from fellow TDs and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre after claiming that X (formerly Twitter) was not responsible for non-consensual sexual images and child sexual abuse images created by the platform's AI tool, Grok, at the request of users. He had instead argued that the users requesting the creation of the images were solely responsible. [26] [27] The following day, O'Donovan announced that he had deactivated his X account due to his concerns about the use of Grok to generate said material. [28] [29] [30]
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