The Minister for the Marine, Mr Ahern, has secured an agreement aimed at saving the lives of thousands of dolphins and porpoises.
The initiative comes under a new European fisheries deal brokered by Ireland's presidency of the EU.
Mr Ahern announced yesterday that he had got EU agreement for a plan to protect dolphins, and dolphin-like species from becoming trapped and killed in driftnets, which claim the lives of tens of thousands of the creatures each year.
The new measures include a reduction of 40 per cent in the use of driftnets by next year and their complete ban in the Baltic Sea by 2008. Where driftnets continue to be used, they will be attached with warning devices or "pingers", which emit sound pulses at a frequency that alerts dolphins to their presence.
An independent observer programme will also be set up to monitor dolphin numbers in EU waters and assess the success of the protection plans.
"Thanks to Ireland's role as president of the EU we have been able to deliver on this new landmark deal. Too many dolphins perish every year as a consequence of fishing programmes," said Mr Ahern.
Existing protection measures had not done enough to reduce the annual dolphin carnage, he said.
"We do not know how many dolphins are killed every year as a result of driftnets and gillnets. The best estimate is that several thousand, possibly as many as 10,000 are killed in the North Sea alone."
The deployment of independent scientific observers would produce vital information for the fisheries industry, he said. "I know this is going to be hugely important for future conservation work in this area."
A spokesman for the Minister said the measures, including the reduction in driftnets, would not have a negative impact on Irish fishing industry yields. The deal had been delivered in co-operation with fishermen, he said.
Twenty million tonnes of fish, or a quarter of the world's fish yields, were discarded annually, because they were two small or because they were the wrong species, he added.
"There are an awful lot of wasted resources. We need to move towards more environmentally-friendly fishing. The idea is to fish in a much smarter way, and through measures like this there won't be the same amounts of discards.
"We are doing this in partnership with the fishermen," he said.
