New jobs created by Irish Poundland stores and new report highlights waste in British fishing industry

Poundland will open six new stores in Ireland within the next year, creating 180 jobs in the discount store. In Ireland the stores sell locally sourced food including milk and eggs. A report from the New Economics Foundation has suggested that £1 billion of cod thrown back into the sea has cost the UK 700 jobs.

Discount retailer Poundland will open six stores in Ireland by next March, creating 180 jobs.

Discount retailer Poundland will open six stores in Ireland by next March, creating 180 jobs, in the company's first expansion outside the UK.

The company says it could open up to 50 stores in the Republic in the coming years.

The stores here will be called Dealz, as its fixed price format will be 'adapted' for its European outlets, giving the retailer flexibility to vary its prices.

Poundland sells both well-known brands and own label products at low prices. In its Irish stores it will sell Irish, locally sourced milk, eggs and crisps.

It has 347 stores in the UK where it also sells products from food and drink, to health and beauty, baby and gardening products.

The first four Irish stores will open by early October, with two more to follow by next March, in Dublin's suburbs and Cork.

Poundland's expansion has been supported by private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which took a 75% stake in the company in a £200m sterling deal last year.

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£1billion of cod thrown back into the seas over the last 50 years

Fishermen have been forced to throw away about £1billion-worth of cod over the last 50 years.

That wastage would have supported more than 700 jobs in the British fishing industry.

Had the fish been left in the sea with time to grow, they would have been worth around £2.6billion to the economy, according to a report from the New Economics Foundation think-tank.

Under the Common Fisheries Policy, trawlers are strictly limited on what they can catch.

It means they often have to dump 'the wrong type' of fish that have been caught and brought aboard. In many cases, up to half the catch is thrown overboard so as not to exceed the EU quota.

Campaigners are demanding more selective fishing in the North Sea and the eastern part of the Channel which would allow stocks to develop.

The report come just weeks after the European Commission unveiled fundamental reforms to the controversial policy, widely regarded as a failure.

It was designed to stop over-fishing and protect fish stocks.

'This report shows exactly why we need to end the unacceptable practice of throwing dead fish back to the sea,' said fisheries minister Richard Benyon.

'It's a terrible waste of perfectly good food.'

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