The Government investigation to establish if some Aughinish Alumina products are ending up as components in Russian military equipment is not “stalling”, a Government Minister has said. Minister of State for Trade Neale Richmond said a “very real investigation” into the matter was taking place, under the direction of the Department of Enterprise “Ultimately, at the moment, alumina isn’t a sanctioned product, but if it was, we’ll react in kind as we have in the past,” said Richmond, who was speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics. Asked why Sweden and Estonia had moved to curtail the products without waiting for an investigation, Richmond said: “We have an investigation on trade flows coming from our jurisdiction. We have a legal, as well as a moral obligation, to make sure that investigation is based on very real charges and I’ve no issue to date on the credibility of the charges.“If there is a breach of sanctions, we will absolutely work to move on that or . . . it may feed into the fact that maybe we need to update the sanctions.”Richmond dismissed suggestions the Government was reluctant to conclude the investigation. He said: “We have a very real investigation. It’s not stalling. “Very clear charges were made by The Irish Times [investigation]. We work with the European Commission to actually find these intricate trade links, because ultimately alumina isn’t a sanctioned product." Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats, speaking on the same programme, said it was clear Aughinish was a significant contributor to the Russian military’s aluminium-production needs.He said: “There’s 107 different companies in Russia, military companies, defence companies that take their supply of alumina from those smelters that Ireland is supplying. So, this is this is very serious. The Government should act on it.”Asked if compromise was possible, especially for the 450 jobs in Co Limerick, Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly said this could happen if a serious effort was made to seek new markets unconnected to Russia. “If we walked out of here and stopped people on the street and asked them if they were content that any company based here in Ireland had any part of Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, they would say absolutely not,” she said. “What we do really need to see is the exploration of other markets and I think nothing at this stage should be off the table. I am also conscious that there are nearly 500 jobs and people will be watching TV thinking, ‘is my job going to be safe?’.“I think the Government can give that reassurance that they will actively look for other markets and also work across the European Union to protect the jobs, but also to ensure that that no resources are taken from Ireland and used as part of Putin’s war machine.”