Ferry giant P&O has announced plans to close one of its routes towards the end of the year.
The Dublin-Liverpool route will be axed due to the unavailability of a berth in the Merseyside city for next year, the company said.
"Without agreement with the port owner to provide a berth in Liverpool, it is impossible for P&O Ferries to continue operating on this route," it said in a statement.
"Extensive negotiations with the owner of our Liverpool site to extend our lease at the port or find an alternative site for our Liverpool-Dublin service to operate from have been unsuccessful.
"P&O Ferries is committed to serving our Irish Sea customers and has explored all options to continue sailing on this route.
"Unfortunately, despite utmost efforts by P&O Ferries to find a viable solution, no suitable alternative has been offered that would enable us to maintain the current service into 2024.
"We are saddened by our forced withdrawal from this route, which will reduce competition and the choice of sailings available to customers on a crossing where there is currently only one alternative operator."
The route is served by two P&O ferries making 24 sailings a week and is mainly used to transport freight between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
P&O intends to redeploy the two boats on other routes.
"We are now beginning a consultation process with our employees affected by the intended closure of this service," it said.
"We will offer support to affected colleagues to find alternative employment within our business, or where that is not possible, help to find employment elsewhere.
"We have also worked to ensure that where possible our customers affected by the intended closure of the Liverpool-Dublin route can access alternative services with other operators.
"We remain fully committed to serving customers on our Irish Sea crossing between our ports in Larne and Cairnryan, where we recently celebrated our 50th year of operations, and on our network around the UK."
Hauliers 'saddened' by loss of route
The President of the Irish Road Haulage Association has said he is "saddened" by the announcement about the end of the route.
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Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Eugene Drennan said that the connectivity between Ireland and Liverpool has been there for many centuries.
He said: "It's a pity to see something like this happen. We need all the connectivity we possibly can to an island, especially now with Brexit.
"We must keep our supply chains open and a variety of them.
"It was very necessary for us to in the freight and transport industry to be compliant with the laws of tax graft, to give a full break to drivers, to have the variety of time scheduled and to come and go to the island of Ireland as efficiently as possible."
Mr Drennnan said that as reducing carbon is a focus in transport, the trucks will now go to Holyhead rather than to Liverpool, so there will be a lot more traffic on that road "and that creates some of this carbon that we're trying to get rid of."
He said that while other ferry operators do service the route, this will be able to cater for the extra capacity "for now", but at times of bad weather, at times of fluctuations of trade, we need all connectivity that we possibly can get.
The Minister for Transport has said he believes that sufficient capacity exists with other ferry operators, to off-set the disruption caused by the closure of the P&O Dublin to Liverpool service later this year.
Eamon Ryan said that approximately 3,000 RoRo (Roll On, Roll Off) units are carried on the Dublin- Liverpool route each week by P&O.
In a statement, he said that while it is disappointing that P&O and the owners of Liverpool Port could not come to an agreement to extend the existing lease, sufficient capacity exists for these units to be accommodated on alternative service.
The statement added that "shipping operators have proven to be dynamic when responding to changes in demand. As the last number of years have demonstrated, particularly during the Brexit process, the shipping market is resilient and will respond to provide the required capacity when needed.
"The Department of Transport will continue to monitor the situation as it develops over the coming months", it said.
Earlier, Sinn Féin's transport spokesperson has called on the Minister for Transport to do "everything possible", to ensure the P&O Ferry route from Dublin to Liverpool is maintained.
Martin Kenny said that he was very concerned to hear news that the passenger and freight service was ending.
