Irish Ferries yesterday scrapped one of its daily round trips from Dublin to Britain, citing weakness in the tourism market and rising fuel costs.

From next week, the company will operate four round trips a day instead of the usual five. The cancellation of one of the sailings will reduce capacity on the Dublin to Holyhead route by 7 per cent, according to Tony Kelly, marketing manager of Irish Ferries, which is owned by Irish Continental Group. Including the company's Rosslare to Pembroke route, overall capacity will be down by about 4 per cent, he said.

Irish Ferries currently runs two ships on the Dublin to Holyhead route, the Jonathan Swift, which is capable of carrying about 200 cars and focuses solely on the tourism market, and the Ulysses, which also caters for the freight market and has capacity for 1,300 cars.

Mr Kelly said the group had decided to cut one of the Jonathan Swift's daily sailings because, as a faster ship, it uses more fuel than the Ulysses.

NCB analyst John Sheehan described the decision as a good one for the company logistically, although said the reasons behind it - namely declining passenger numbers - were negative. He said it shouldn't leave the company short of capacity in the long run as freight capacity would be unaffected and there remains ample car-carrying capacity on the other sailings to accommodate leisure travellers.

"Looking at the car market in the second half of last year, we figured we could manage quite well with four departures from Dublin," said Mr Kelly.

"The Swift, being a faster craft, does consume considerably more fuel and therefore, with the state of the market, we considered this to be a prudent move."

Irish Sea passenger volumes declined over the course of last year as increased competition from low-cost airlines cut into the industry's markets.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Ryanair announced increases in its capacity between Britain and Ireland, a move Mr Sheehan said may impact on Irish Ferries' passenger count in the future.