The Irish Wildlife Trust has welcomed the proposed EU ban on discarding fish as part of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The organisation said it was a "vital step" towards "restoring the ecological balance in Irish seas".
IWT chairman Pádraic Fogarty said: “Discarding is tremendously wasteful and is causing untold damage to our marine ecosystems."
EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki has described the practice of discarding as “unethical, a waste of natural resources and a waste of fishermen’s effort.”
The proposals to ban discards have come after a high-profile campaign against the practice of fishermen dumping dead fish, through which it emerged that half of all fish caught in the North Sea are thrown back.