Businesses in Northern Ireland react to Windsor Framework agreed between UK and EU

In 2022, more than 151,000 consignments were shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Of those, about 20% were headed for the Republic of Ireland and all of them were subject to checks.

Under the new agreement announced by the UK and EU on Monday there'll be a new system made up of green and red lanes.

The goods that will remain in Northern Ireland will enter the green lane for supposedly frictionless-type of trade, while those that are heading south to the Republic of Ireland will enter the red lane and will still be checked.

Peter Summerton is the managing director of McCulla Transport.

He told UTV: "I have reservations this will become too much friction to allow trade to move freely.

"It'll enter two categories of people, people who have to supply Northern Ireland as they have retail outlets or they've got store footprints here or other businesses here. It may help them.

"The 'want to' category, who aren't 'have to's', I'm not sure this will be enough to make people want to service Northern Ireland."

Businessman Irwin Armstrong is supportive of Brexit and said the protocol had been working for him and his business.

"Seventy-percent of the manufacturing companies in Northern Ireland are exporters to the EU and I'm sure all of those companies want stability, they want to know what's happening and they want to know what paperwork they may or may not need," he added.

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