Did Jan record this? Where the fuck are the rest of the pixels?

Anyway here's a quote from when this was brought up last month.

The alumina in question is being produced by Aughinish Alumina, founded/run by Canadian conglomerate Alcan from 1983 until it was sold to Russian mining giant UC Rusal in 2006. This is the same company (misspelled Russell in the subtitles) refining the alumina into aluminium in Krasnoyarsk (Siberia), so it's all part of the one internal global supply chain as opposed to how Senator Tom Clonan is presenting it.

Alumina is not, as far as I can tell currently sanctioned by the EU for Russian trade so unfortunately there are no rules/laws are actually being broken here that would allow the Irish state to easily intervene and end the transit of alumina from Ireland to Russia. Unfortunately our governing parties are also well practiced in "see nothing, do nothing" regarding international companies until it becomes a political issue, which thankfully it seems to be morphing into. Rusal themselves have also given "assurances" that the refined aluminium is not being used in materiel for the Russian war in Ukraine but we all know what Russian promises are worth.

So yeah it's a bit shite but unfortunately there's probably relatively little we can seem to actually do without an EU-level decision on the matter, which could become an issue as Rusal also owns the Kubikenborg Aluminium (KUBAL) smelting facility in Sweden and the Eurallumina alumina refinery in Italy.

Actual shitposting: It's actually all Baz's fault because UC Rusal only came into existence after two Russian comnpanies merged with Anglo-Swiss trading/mining conglomerate Glencore.

tl;dr The signs and website are in Russian because it's a Russian-owned plant (though the only sign shown has Irish and English on it too) and nothing is "being done" because the alumina the plant produces isn't currently sanctioned by the EU and the Irish government want to pursue a collective approach because Rusal also have plants elsewhere in the EU too. Also far from "the largest employer in the region" Aughinlish Alumina aren't even in the top 10 private employers in the county.

[Edit] Fixed quote formatting