The revelations in The Irish Times about Aughinish Alumina in Limerick came a day after Russia launched a wave of missile and drone attacks across Ukraine that killed four people and injured dozens more.
While the Government has refused to arm Ukraine’s military, a plant in Ireland has exported vast amounts of alumina via its Russian parent company United Company Rusal to Russian smelters.
The investigation, which was carried out in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), detailed how smelters supply aluminium to a Moscow-based trading company, which in turn supplies Russia’s military industry. The aluminium is purchased by dozens of arms companies that make weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine, which kill and maim on an industrial scale.
Although there is no suggestion that those working at Aughinish were aware of Rusal’s extensive ties to companies that supply European Union-sanctioned arms manufacturers, these allegations are exceptionally serious and could damage Ireland’s reputation internationally.
More than 15,000 civilians in Ukraine have been killed since Russia’s latest invasion of the country in 2022; the war has also claimed the lives of an estimated 55,000 members of Ukraine’s military. Ireland has provided substantial aid to the Ukrainian government over the last four years – more than €467 million in financial aid and support – even if the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Joe Hackett, recently described Irish assistance as “well below the contributions of most EU member states, including many with smaller economies”. The Government has ruled out the provision of “lethal aid” – such as weapons and ammunition – as that would violate Irish neutrality.
Government pronouncements on the need for wide-ranging sanctions in response to the war in Ukraine have been unambiguous. In 2023, Minister of State Malcolm Noonan, deputising for then minister for justice Simon Harris, told the Dáil, “Ireland has been consistent in advocating for a maximalist approach to sanctions.” Over the last four years, the EU has banned more than €48 billion in goods and technologies that would have been exported to Russia. Other EU member states have borne far more of the economic pain in order to enforce sanctions. The alternative, their governments concluded, was to feed the Russian war economy.
It is hard to reconcile assurances about a “maximalist approach to sanctions” with successive governments’ actions (and inaction) when it comes to Aughinish.
In March 2022, just weeks after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the sanctioning by the EU of a range of oligarchs and companies linked to resident Vladimir Putin’s government, then taoiseach Leo Varadkar reportedly met Lord Greg Barker, a former Conservative Party minister and a member of the House of the Lords. Barker was closely linked to the Russian oligarch and Putin associate Oleg Deripaska. The latter was (and is) a big shareholder in EN+ – which controls United Company Rusal, the parent company of Limerick Alumina Refining Ltd.
In 2018, Barker, with the support of the government and other EU member states, successfully lobbied the United States government to remove sanctions that were driving up costs at the Aughinish site. For his part, Deripaska agreed to give up a controlling stake in EN+, although he retained 44.95 per cent of shares in the company.
[ Government to review ‘concerning’ findings of Irish Times Aughinish investigationOpens in new window ]
The 2022 meeting between Varadkar and the Tory peer was at a time when Barker was under scrutiny in the UK for his lobbying on behalf of commercial interests which would directly or indirectly benefit key supporters of the Putin government. The UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, called for Barker to resign from the House of Lords and “to explain why he works with people like Deripaska”. He declined to meet Barker in 2018 since he believed that he was “requesting government assistance for Russian associates”. The financier and anti-corruption activist Bill Browder criticised the Irish Government, saying in an interview that the meeting with Barker “clearly stinks”.
Friends of Barker told the New York Times that he only wanted “to promote renewable energy”, of which Deripaska has vast amounts.
The reported discussions with Barker in Dublin took place during a time when the Government was trying to prevent Aughinish from being caught up in a raft of new sanctions. There was no sale of the plant to companies who were untainted by ties to the Putin regime and the arms industry in Russia. Yet, in the weeks after the meeting with Barker, the Government successfully lobbied the EU and the US to ensure that Aughinish continued to be exempt from sanctions.
The possibility that successive governments seriously believed that increased exports of Irish alumina to Russia since 2022 were not in any way linked to that country’s surging war economy and arms industry seems unlikely. The alternative explanation is wilful blindness; ministers did not want to level with the public about the possible costs to Ireland’s standing in Europe if the status quo over Aughinish persisted. Tough conversations – the potential loss of jobs (and government intervention to mitigate or even avoid such a blow) in order to prevent serious harm to Ukraine – were avoided.
The Government should now provide more transparency about lobbying and decision-making in relation to Limerick Alumina Refining, United Company Rusal and EN+. What assessments and briefings, if any, since the invasion of Crimea in 2014, were given to ministers about the possibility of exports from Aughinish being used to fuel the Russian arms industry and the war in Ukraine? Why was the meeting between Varadkar and Barker in 2022 deemed to be appropriate, and what was discussed? What other meetings were held by government ministers with lobbyists and representatives of these companies, and what were the topics and outcomes of these discussions?
A broader concern is whether the State’s approach to exports and foreign investment is sufficiently informed in a way that reflects foreign policy principles and safeguards national security. It is unclear whether the State’s intelligence services have an appropriately integrated role in advising on such decisions. Browder warned in 2022 that, by engaging with Deripaska’s associates and lobbying for a sanctions exemption for Aughinish, Ireland was guilty of “this hypocrisy where governments would talk about human rights, justice, and national security out of one side of their mouths without any questions asked out of the other side of the mouth”.
Sadly that warning went largely unheeded – and Ukraine may have paid the price.
Edward Burke is an assistant professor in the History of War since 1945 at UCD