Three women have accused Aughinish Alumina’s Russian co-owner – Vladimir Putin’s one-time “favourite"; a man for whom three Fine Gael ministers lobbied the US – of paying them for sex when they were minors.
Paschal Donohoe, Simon Coveney and Patrick O’Donovan successfully lobbied US authorities in 2019 to lift sanctions against Aughinish Alumina’s Oleg Deripaska – the same year Deripaska allegedly paid a 15-year-old for sex.
The revelations became public in June this year after an investigation by exiled independent investigative news outlets Istories and Verstka, both targeted by the Putin government over their reporting.
Three Fine Gael ministers
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is accused of paying for sex with three girls, all of whom were under 18.
The allegations are part of a Russian criminal investigation that began in 2019.
One of the girls, then aged 15, alleges she lost her virginity to Deripaska and that he twice paid her €2,000 for sex in June 2019. The age of consent in Russia is 16.
The owner of Ireland and Europe’s largest alumina refinery is also accused of paying for sex with two 17-year-old girls.
One of the two girls claims she was first approached when she was just 15 years old and asked by a third party if she was willing to “sell” her virginity to Deripaska. She said she didn’t have sex with him until two years later.
Deripaska allegedly told the same girl that “he’s not a paedophile” but avoids “mature” women to protect his reputation.
Oleg Deripaska’s name is repeatedly mentioned in both testimonies and wiretaps, according to the report.
The oligarch, described by The Guardian in 2022 as one of Putin’s “favourite” industrialists, avoided prosecution. One of the investigators who worked on the case claims his superiors told him “not to meddle” after prosecutors decided to charge just one individual for buying sex with minors, according to the joint investigation by Istories and Verstka.
Aughinish Alumina, which Deripaska’s Rusal company owns, was removed from the energy market last month after a ruling by an Italian court.
Tánaiste and enterprise minister Simon Coveney successfully lobbied US authorities to drop sanctions against Deripaska in 2019 over fears that jobs at the Aughinish Alumina plant in county Limerick were under threat.
Fine Gael ministers Patrick O’Donovan and Paschal Donohoe were also among those who lobbied the US government to remove restrictions on the Russian billionaire, according to a government statement in January 2019.
The EU imposed sanctions on Deripaska in April 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – an invasion Deripaska described as “mad”.
