{"id":564686,"date":"2026-07-23T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564686\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:46:10","slug":"government-may-explore-other-approaches-to-ensure-alumina-not-reaching-russia-says-martin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564686\/","title":{"rendered":"Government may explore \u2018other approaches\u2019 to ensure alumina not reaching Russia, says Martin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government will examine if there are \u201cother approaches\u201d that could be taken to ensure Aughinish Alumina<\/a> was not supplying material to Russian<\/a> arms manufacturers, other than sanctioning the plant, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said. <\/p>\n

Speaking during a visit to Kyiv on Thursday, Martin said the investigation into the Co Limerick<\/a> facility did not find \u201cconcrete or definitive\u201d evidence it was supplying alumina to the Russian military, but equally could not rule that scenario out. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have said is that the evidential threshold isn\u2019t there to prove that it goes into weapon making, on the other hand, neither can you say definitively that it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing beside Ukrainian<\/a> president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a>, Martin said: \u201cWe do not want material from Aughinish going to Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ZelenskiyZelenskiy and Martin at a joint press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. Photograph: Tetiana Dzhafarova\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> leader for the first time confirmed the findings of the Department of Enterprise<\/a> inquiry into Aughinish and its exports to Russia. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation has not found concrete or definitive evidence linking the alumina to a weapons manufacturer in Russia. That said, neither has it found definitive evidence that alumina may not be going to weapons manufacturers, so it\u2019s difficult,\u201d the Taoiseach told a joint press conference during a visit to the Ukrainian capital.<\/p>\n

The Government will shortly share the outcome of its inquiry with the European Commission<\/a>, the EU<\/a>\u2019s executive body that proposes and oversees the bloc\u2019s regime of economic sanctions targeting Russia. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0As the Taoiseach sat with Zelenskiy at Mariinskiy Palace, an air raid siren sounded in the distanceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is both an Irish issue and a European issue,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

The investigation was opened following reporting by The Irish Times, in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, that drew on leaked documents to detail how Aughinish Alumina is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia, where it is then sold to a company supplying aluminium to Russian arms and missile manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The commission will begin drawing up a fresh package of sanctions targeting Moscow and its war machine in the coming weeks, which will be the 22nd round of restrictions since Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n

Zelenskiy said he would like to see alumina listed as a sanctioned product in that round of measures tabled by Brussels officials, which \u2013 if approved by all 27 EU member states \u2013 would bar European companies exporting the material to Moscow. <\/p>\n

From the Shannon to Siberia: How alumina from a Limerick refinery enters Russia\u2019s weapons supply chain<\/p>\n

\"occrpAughinish 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support sanctioning of the relevant production … the number one task that we have, the issue is that this does not reach Russia, that this does not help weapons production,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Martin said Ireland would work with the commission to see if there were \u201cother approaches\u201d that could be taken to achieve the \u201cobjective\u201d of making sure Irish alumina exports were not feeding the Russian war machine.<\/p>\n

Pressed on this point, the Taoiseach said he was constrained in how much detail he could give. \u201cI mean there could be some market solutions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The important role played by the Co Limerick refinery in the wider European supply chain had to be a factor taken into account in any future EU decision on sanctions, he added.<\/p>\n

An aluminium smelting facility in Dunkirk, France, that supplied European industry was \u201cheavily dependent\u201d on the Irish plant, to the extent it received 70 per cent of its alumina from Aughinish, Martin said. <\/p>\n

Any response would have to make sure Aughinish\u2019s supply to European industry was not disrupted, \u201cwhilst not having material going to Russia\u201d, he added. <\/p>\n

The investigation by the department into Aughinish Alumina\u2019s exports to Russia was \u201calmost complete\u201d, Martin said.<\/p>\n

The plant, which is owned by Russian metals giant Rusal<\/a>, had been \u201cadamant\u201d that raw material it produced was not going to arms manufacturers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government will examine if there are \u201cother approaches\u201d that could be taken to ensure Aughinish Alumina was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,7038,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-564686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-irish-politics","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}