Business

Firms in North find ways to make protocol work ‘because they have to’

Elaine Birchall, chief executive of consumer goods firm SHS Group, says inflation has made for very tough trading conditions and the year ahead looks like being another of deflated consumer demand

Elaine Birchall, chief executive, SHS Group, and chair of CBI Northern Ireland: ‘From a practical business point of view, I’m an advocate of [the protocol] working.’ Picture: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press

The protocol is “one of the single biggest missed opportunities for the Northern Ireland marketplace”, Elaine Birchall, chief executive of SHS Group, the consumer goods company, has said.

Birchall, a native of Kildare who is also chair of CBI Northern Ireland, the business lobby group, told the Business Post that companies are finding a way to make the protocol work “because they have to”.

“How do we get the best bits of it to work? ...