Alumina “may very well” be included on the next list of sanctioned European Union exports to Russia, a Minister has said.
The Government is under pressure to clarify Aughinish Alumina’s role in supplying key raw materials to Russia, with the findings of a Department of Enterprise investigation into the matter due later this month.
Concerns were raised following the publication of an Irish Times investigation earlier this year, which detailed how the Co Limerick plant was exporting vast quantities of raw material to smelters in Russia, which is sold to a company that supplies aluminium to Russian arms manufacturers.
Minister for Higher and Further Education James Lawless on Sunday said the Coalition was taking the matter “extremely seriously”. He said Ireland had provided “stalwart support” to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
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“There have been 20 packages of sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russian-linked goods,” he told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, adding that alumina had not featured in any of those.
“Now, it may very well in the next round, but it’s not a military product, it’s not a dual-use product, it’s an industrial product that is used among other things in medical devices, electronics [and] industrial smelters.”
Lawless noted that the EU uses 40 per cent of the alumina produced by the Co Limerick plant, adding: “We don’t want to cut off our nose to spite our face.”
EU governments are negotiating the block’s next round of sanctions, which need to be unanimously approved, with another batch of measures to be proposed afterwards, likely during Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The European Parliament last week voted in favour of a non-binding motion to ban alumina exports to Russia. Such a step would seriously curtail Aughinish’s business.
A ban on alumina exports to Russia has been pushed for behind the scenes by the Estonian government, with an expectation that the European Commission will re-examine the possibility of proposing sanctions targeting that trade after the Department of Enterprise’s inquiry is published.
The mayor of Limerick, John Moran, has written to the Government calling for a “co-ordinated forum” to be established in his office to plan the future of the operation, which is located outside the city on the Shannon estuary. On Sunday he said he had not yet received a response to his letter.
Moran told RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme that Ireland should not be “pushed” into a decision on the future of the plant by the EU. He said people in Limerick were not confident that the voice of workers at the plant, as well as its suppliers, was being heard.
“That’s the hard part, making sure that part of the equation is heard and we’re not just, like, pushed into some decision by the European Union,” he said.
From the Shannon to Siberia: How alumina from a Limerick refinery enters Russia’s weapons supply chain
- Aughinish Alumina in Co Limerick supplies vast amounts of raw materials to Russian aluminium smelters, according to an investigation by The Irish Times and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
- Read the full investigation here.
Moran, a former secretary general at the Department of Finance, said the bank guarantee of 2008 was the last time a “big decision” was taken under “European pressure without the right facts”, adding that later “we regretted it”.
The Limerick plant is owned by Russian metals giant Rusal, which Swedish tax authorities recently concluded remains under the control of sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Asked about the substantive issue, the potential use of alumina in the Russian military supply chain, he said there was a “balance to be struck” and there had been no “invasive supervision” on where the exports were going.
“We don’t want to be knee-jerked into a situation that has such tremendous repercussions on people,” he said.
Moran suggested some form of a buyout of shares, rather than nationalisation, could be considered. Based on his previous experience as a civil servant, he said his expectation was that the central Government must have been considering a scenario of nationalisation.
“We need to have some calm, we need to work out what is the right answer for Ireland, what’s the right answer for Ukraine, what’s the right answer for Europe?”
