Irish Permanent members who have not claimed their 300 free shares under the 1994 flotation of the former building society have until tomorrow to claim them. Irish Permanent has said that there is no leeway with the September 21st deadline and any shares not claimed after the deadline will be cancelled. At the current share price, the 300 free Irish Permanent shares are currently worth over £1,800.

As of September 5th last, 8.3 million shares worth almost £51 million had been unclaimed, but since then Irish Permanent has mounted a campaign to alert anybody entitled to the free shares that they had to make a claim by September 21st.

When Irish Permanent floated on the stock market in October 1994, some 48.4 million free shares were issued to members who applied for an allocation, leaving about 21 million shares unclaimed. Most Irish Permanent members received 300 free shares worth 180p each - or a total of £540. Earlier this year, the Irish Permanent reached an all-time high of 673p and were trading at 612p on the Dublin market yesterday.

By the end of December 1996, the number of free shares unclaimed had fallen to 14.4 million and at the beginning of this month, the number of unclaimed shares had fallen to 8.3 million. Irish Permanent would not say yesterday how many of the free shares had been claimed in the past two weeks, stating that this is "price-sensitive information."

Those who failed to claim their 300 free shares in October 1994 have missed out on dividend payments of £86.25, loyalty bonuses of 15 free shares a year for the past three years - worth a total of £275 at yesterday's price - apart from the opportunity to make a profit of up to 673p per share if they sold when Irish Permanent shares peaked earlier this year.