Speculation on another shake-up in the British banking industry meant that the focus of attention in Dublin was on the bank shares and particularly Bank of Ireland. With potential bid target Abbey National up sharply in London, most bank stocks were in demand and closed ahead on the day.

Bank of Ireland jumped 30 cents to €10.00 in Dublin in turnover of almost 4.4 million shares although AIB dropped 16 cents to €12.70 in much thinner trading. Irish Life gained 4 cents to €12.70. Smurfit was the most active of the industrials and gained 3 cents to €1.98 in turnover of over 3.3 million shares while Ryanair jumped 28 cents to hit a new high of €11.30.

Eircom's results caused little movement in the shares which were down just 1 cent on €2.89 while there was continued heavy trading as the shares gained 4 cents to €0.76 in turnover of 1.8 million shares. Greencore, which has slumped since it confirmed its planned Hazlewood acquisition, regained 3 cents to €2.48.

Green was 22 cents lower on €6.78 - AIB Investment Managers was one of the big sellers into last week's buyback, unloading 800,000 shares to take its stake down to 4.9 million shares or 4.67 per cent. Qualceram disclosed that Gartmore bought another 124,000 shares to take its stake to 863,000 shares or 4.12 per cent.

A "buy" recommendation and a price target of £9.00 sterling from Lehman did not do much for Baltimore which fell 6p in London to £3.35 sterling. With Baltimore now in 133rd place, its exit from the FTSE-100 index in tomorrow's review of the index now seems inevitable.