There will be big consequences for the electricity grid if products being exported by Aughinish Alumina to Russia are found to be used by Russia’s military complex, the Minister for Enterprise has warned.Speaking in the Dáíl, Peter Burke warned there would be “big implications” for some 1,000 jobs and for European security if an “investigation” by his department into the smelting plant confirmed its alumina was being turned by Russia into weapons for use in its war against Ukraine.“Action will have to be taken” if this is the case and “there are no easy answers”, said Burke. He said he hoped to have the inquiry results “very shortly”. A “lot of meetings are going on this week”, he added. It will be a “quick investigation” and “won’t be going on months or years”.His department hoped to ascertain “whether the supply chain is concealed”.Burke noted that 200,000 homes and the port of Foynes are powered by the Co Limerick plant.The Government instigated the inquiry after The Irish Times reported figures, obtained from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), showing 83 per cent of alumina exports from Ireland (200,619 tonnes) went to Russia in the first three months of 2026, while 0.6 per cent went to the EU.Ministers later disputed the CSO figures, stating that Aughinish had informed the department that 45 per cent of exports went to Russia.In the Dáil on Tuesday night, Burke insisted the CSO “is the gold standard and I never implied it was incorrect in any way.“The management of Aughinish Alumina had furnished incorrect information to the CSO and they were working with the CSO to rectify” this.The Minister has previously said his department was doing a “deep dive” to ensure it was not the case that Aughinish was exporting alumina that was being turned into weapons. The findings would be shared with the European Commission, he said. “We have to be clear, if there are products being exported to Russia that are being used in the Russian military complex, action will have to be taken. And there are no easy answers to this.”In March, an Irish Times investigation carried out in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project revealed Aughinish Alumina is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia, where the raw material is used to make aluminium later supplied to dozens of Russian arms manufacturers.Last week The Irish Times also revealed minutes of a meeting between EU officials and company representatives in which the firm outlined how the plant produced 1.8 million tonnes of alumina each year, “half sold to EU-based customers and half to Russia”.Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly said the Government has been “so slow to conduct an investigation, and the Ukrainian embassy has expressed a serious concern about the continued sales to Russia” for the production of weapons, including ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles and Shahid drones, that are being used against Ukrainian cities every week.He added “even if it was an error that stated 80 per cent of exports” went to Russia in 2025 and the true figure was 45 per cent, “that’s still unacceptable”.The Minister said, however, “we need to ascertain where that 45 per cent is going” because there were “many aspects” to alumina’s use in “every country”, including for medical devices, the food processing and automotive sectors.The EU is also a “very significant importer” of alumina. Denying a delay in the investigation, he insisted once The Irish Times report was published “we immediately opened an investigation”.The department was in contact with the Swedish and Ukrainian authorities and were updating the European Commission weekly on the matter, Burke said.