When an investigation or inquiry is announced, it is generally good practice to explain the terms of reference or at least to clarify the question or questions set for investigators. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment has not set out its terms of reference or list of questions – if any existed – for the Government’s investigation into allegations published in The Irish Times that large amounts of exports by Aughinish Alumina in Co Limerick have made their way into the Russian military supply chain for its war in Ukraine.

It might have been expected, however, that officials would have been asked to assess the likelihood that alumina exports are being employed by the Russian arms industry. After all, in the wake of the revelations, the Taoiseach stated that the Government would not tolerate “in any shape or form [exports] that end up as weapons or explosives that impact upon Ukraine”.

On Friday, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said that the final report by his department could not “confirm” that alumina was being used to supply Russia’s military industrial complex. In his statement, he acknowledged that it was extraordinarily difficult to gather accurate “internal trade data” from Vladimir Putin’s regime. But he claimed that such “information of a sufficient evidentiary level” would be necessary before the Government could act. Instead of coming to an assessment based on weighted probabilities and risk, the Government has set an impossibly high bar for incontrovertible data to emerge from Russia itself.

Nearly four months of investigation has finally resulted in this report, described by Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan as “a classic fudge”.

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© The Irish Times