Strong gains on international equity markets drove Irish share prices to another new high, and further gains may be in the offing if, as is now expected, the Bank of England monetary committee decides today to leave British rates unchanged. Most of the gains in Dublin were among the industrials and Smurfit continued to benefit on speculation on a restructuring at JS Corp which would see the Morgan Stanley 34 per cent stake either placed or distributed to investors in the leveraged equity fund.

The prospect of over a third of JS Corp equity coming onto the market may have a dampening effect on the corp's share price and yesterday the shares fell $11/2 to $18. Some in the market are taking the view that now may be the time to sell JS Corp and buy Smurfit and that may partly explain the strength of Smurfit in recent weeks and this week's weakness in JS Corp.

Smurfit was up 3p to 220p in Dublin and closed up 51/2p to 1971/2p sterling in London.

CRH was a beneficiary of the strength in London and closed up 7p on 687p while in London, the shares dealt up 14p to 616p sterling in strong trading. James Crean was up 5p to 205p as American mutual fund Mutual Discovery emerged as the owner of 12.4 per cent of the shares.

Fyffes was 2p higher on 100p as it continued a round of presentations to fund managers, Green was up 4p on 370p while Independent gained 15p to 430p as it rationalised some of its South African interests. Kerry was 5p higher on 670p while Kingspan gained 7p to 892p.

Among the financials, AIB drifted 63/4p lower to 624p while Bank of Ireland was 7p higher on 687p.