Sitting over a coffee in the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast’s city centre, Manufacturing NI’s Stephen Kelly talks of the natural reserve of the Ulster business person, one built out of modesty, but caution, too.
“There’s the old Ulster thing of never driving a better car than your boss, or your customer. The softest thing about many of these people is their teeth, but they’re reluctant to show their success. They’re not flashy,” says Kelly, with a smile.
But success there is,strikingly so at a time where people think manufacturing is part of Northern Ireland’s past, not its present or future, says the chief executive of the trade lobby group.
Nearly 100,000 people across Northern Ireland “make things” for a living, often working in small, family-owned businesses. Even the smallest are selling around the world.
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In Mid-Ulster, stretching from the Border with Monaghan to north of the western side of Lough Neagh, more than half of all of local jobs directly or indirectly depend on manufacturing.
“It’s the same elsewhere. Forty per cent in the Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon council area, 40 per cent in Mourne and in East Antrim. There are people today from here installing machinery somewhere in the Amazon,” Kelly says.
With a history in engineering and textiles, Northern Ireland has built key niches: “We dominate the world for crushing and screening equipment – the machines that can take a big, massive chunk of rock and chew it all up and separate it.”
The early ground here was made by Ulster Plant in Dungannon, which became Powerscreen. It exported successfully from the 1960s until it was bought by the US multinational, the Terex Corporation, in one of the first big post-Good Friday agreement deals.
Today, Powerscreen is the still biggest firm of its type in Northern Ireland “but there are 150 engineering firms down there all making equipment, selling all over the world, and most people know nothing about them”, he says.
Similarly, an ecosystem has grown up around the company originally called Short Brothers before it was sold to the Canadian aerospace company, Bombardier and, since 2020, known as Spirit AeroSystems.
Today 120 businesses across Northern Ireland supply global aerospace clients, including Spirit AeroSystems “supplying directly to Bombardier, to Boeing and Airbus, and others”, said the Manufacturing NI chief executive.
A third of the world’s first class, business and premium economy aircraft seats are made in Northern Ireland at Collins Aerospace in Kilkeel, Co Down and Thompson Aero Seating in Portadown, Co Armagh.
The fabrics and plastics used by Ryanair, EasyJet and other airlines are made in Northern Ireland: “These are all businesses where your quality is your licence to trade. It’s all about the relationship.
“People have had to work and fight really hard, not just in shoe leather, but in building relationships. They’ve maintained those relationships. For a long time. People trust them, and like what they do.”
Finding a voice
Kelly, whose background is in marketing, has worked with Manufacturing NI since 2012, though the focus of the work has changed many times.
The lobby group was born in 2003 when British direct-rule ministers in Stormont – in office because Stormont’s Executive and Assembly were suspended in 2002-2007 – decided to impose rates on Northern Ireland’s factories.
Up to then, businesses in Northern Ireland had largely stayed silent. They had long since learned to make their own way quietly in the Northern Ireland of the Troubles, and its aftermath.
[ Dublin must move ‘in lock-step’ with London on tackling Troubles legacy, say MPsOpens in new window ]
“There were people who were politically aware but, given the difficulties, so many did not step into the political space at all because of the sectarian nature of politics,” Kelly says.
Roused by the threat of industrial rates, however, business did campaign, leading the Democratic Unionist Party’s Peter Robinson to put in place concessions on rates bills on the first day Stormont returned in 2007.
The lessons learned from the rates campaign convinced manufacturers they needed a permanent voice. When Kelly first started in his role, the main priority was energy charges. Then the United Kingdom quit the European Union: “No one here was doing anything about it and our politicians had left the scene, so we had to lead on that.”
Business was subsequently rocked by the Covid pandemic. Later, there were the Brexit-related UK/EU protocol deal and the Windsor Framework, followed by a costs crisis for business and the return, belatedly, of the Stormont institutions.
As Kelly sees it, part of the problem for his sector has been the approach of a London government whose priority was to preserve peace.
“To try to sustain peace during the worst of days, the UK government employed a lot of people in government. I include our elected representatives in that. We’re massively oversubscribed [with] the number of people we’ve elected. Too many councils, too many councillors, too many MLAs, probably too many MPs.
“So they used the political system to keep people busy and keep them talking. That resulted in a bloated public sector,” he says.
The British government’s approach, however intended, saw jobs congregated east of the Bann, and especially in Belfast: “So, if you’re in Tyrone, or in Fermanagh or in Ballymena, the government wasn’t there providing you with jobs.
“People locally needed to do that. People locally had to make those jobs,” says Kelly, citing the example of Tyrone octogenarian, Patsy Forbes, who created hundreds of jobs in a furniture factory in Ardboe.
“He was asked once why he had done what he had done,” says Kelly, “His reply was simple: ‘The people needed work, so I provided them with work.’ That was his contribution to his community. And there are many like him.”
Historically, many of Northern Ireland’s traditional heavy industries were divided along sectarian lines, with “different gates for the workers coming from the Shankill, and those coming from The Falls”.
Kelly remembers once speaking with a retired factory owner from those days: “What’s the most significant thing you’ve ever done when you run this business, I asked him. It was to close down the two gates and make it just one, he says.”
Brexit challenge
If the past was challenging, the future will bring its own hurdles, says Kelly. Northern Ireland and its people are still dealing with the consequences of Brexit.
Though the point can be argued, Kelly insists that NI business did speak about the risks posed by Brexit in advance of the referendum, though he concedes that many “did not take it as seriously as they should because they never thought it was going to happen”.
In the wake of the referendum vote to leave the European Union, Kelly says business led the way, dealing directly with Brussels. “Stormont was non-existent, and no one was doing anything about it, so we started to do something about it.”
In the beginning, he googled the names of people they needed to speak with in Brussels and “fired off emails” saying they were going to be in the Belgian capital and wanted to meet.
Manufacturing companies in Northern Ireland have exploited the opportunities to sell without hurdles into the EU, he argues, though Windsor Framework signage rules on products are causing headaches for everyone living in the North.
Online deliveries are a daily irritant: “Parcel operators did enough in order to keep parcels moving, and no more. But every business has been affected by tariffs, fees and charges.”
The subject frequently dominates. Later in the day, Kelly is off to yet another meeting about problems surrounding the movement of parcels from Britain to Northern Ireland.
“Brexit has not disappeared from us. It’s a bloody pain in the ass,” he says. “Part of the problem is that the UK is trying to faithfully honour the agreements made in order to get a better reputation in the EU, so they can get a better relationship at some point. But we’re the ones paying the price.”
He rejects the argument that dual market access rights enjoyed by Northern Irish firms have not been exploited: “In the last year, NI sales to the EU have grown by 2 per cent, whereas the UK is down by six points. All-island trade has doubled since Brexit.”
However, he accepts that few foreign companies have set up in NI since the Windsor deal to exploit the dual rights.
“Has Northern Ireland gone out and marketed its unique proposition? Absolutely not,” he concedes. “Officials weren’t allowed to do so under previous ministers. They are now. But then how do you describe it? How do you describe this place to potential investors? Our politics are complex. Our post-Brexit rules are complex.”
The Windsor deal – which requires a Stormont Assembly vote every four years to support its continued existence – works best for short-term investments, not the decades-long timetable needed for manufacturing.
“It’s just such a big expensive thing to do. If you’re going to put in place $30 million, $50 million worth of investment, you need policy security for the next 30 years to know you’re going to recover the capital,” Kelly warns.
Relations with Dublin went through many chapters during Brexit, he says.
“There was definitely a sense that Ireland was operating in Ireland’s interest. If Northern Ireland benefited, or was protected, then great. But if not, then fair enough.”
[ Negotiations underway between NI and Republic on common rules for apprenticeshipsOpens in new window ]
“That really became came to light once Brexit actually happened,” he says. “With the protocol and Windsor, it’s been four years of constant change and problems and whack-a-mole everywhere,” he goes on.
Manufacturing NI argues that Northern Ireland is “essentially” at full employment but cannot bring in talented immigrants because of the ever-tightening United Kingdom immigration rules.
“My argument to our manufacturers is assume from this day forward that you’ll never be able to recruit anybody ever again,” he says. To address the issue, he says, many businesses are bringing in AI and robotics to handle repetitive tasks.
“Use the people you have and ensure that they are doing the most productive things. None of this is about getting rid of people. Quite the opposite, it’s about holding on to people, but about creating better jobs. Making jobs easier, better, more productive, more enjoyable or comfortable, or whatever.”
