Former Irish Minister went on 24-hour booze bender before quitting the Dail

Eoghan Murphy resigned from politics in 2021 after leaving his role as Housing Minister due to mental health concerns

By: irishmirror.ie

Nov 07 2024
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Former Irish Minister went on

A former Cabinet minister went on a 24-hour booze bender in London to escape the pressures of politics before he quit the Dail four years ago, he has revealed. Eoghan Murphy resigned from politics in 2021 – but it is not until now that he has revealed that his shock decision was due to mental health concerns.

The ex-Housing Minister said today: “I was embarrassed about why I was leaving politics and a bit ashamed as well. But I was quite desperate to get out, so I was trying to move very quickly. I wanted to have exit interviews and then leave. What went wrong? I entered with ideas and ambition and idealism.”

He discussed if he had a breakdown and said: “My therapist feels that I don’t give enough when talking about it because I always talk about it as panic attacks.”

Mr Murphy (42) added: “I’m not sure in a proper breakdown, or a full breakdown, if people retain that sense of self-awareness. But I definitely had some moments of crisis where I lost control to enough of a degree that scared me and I knew that I had to leave politics as quickly as possible, but leaving it is tougher than you think.”

The ex-Fine Gael TD for Dublin Bay South has detailed in a new book how he “just lost it” in a meeting with then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar when he was trying to explain that he needed to quit. He also admitted his use of sleeping pills and long distance runs in bids to overcome the anxiety and pressures that had begun to overwhelm his political career.

Former Minister for Housing Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy, speaking at the briefing in Government Buildings.

Mr Murphy has spoken of drinking “for a week, recklessly, stupidly” as part of his book Running From Office to cope with pressures like people verbally abusing him in the street. He said on RTE Radio 1: “There were some scary confrontations and it can be very emotional when people are very direct and brutal.

“I carried some of that away with me and that was me not keeping my mental health in check. Difficult situations that I didn’t navigate well at the time culminated in a breakdown in London. I was running away from my job. We went on a 24-hour bender to get away from the pressure of work. I went to the student halls where I used to live and I got caught up inside my own head and had a panic attack or a breakdown.”

Mr Murphy was elected as a Dublin city councillor in 2009 and served in the Dáil from 2011 as a TD, Minister of State, and as a Cabinet minister, finally stepping down in 2021. Before politics, he worked for four years for the UN and the EU on issues such as nuclear disarmament. After politics, he worked as for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and was an election observer.

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