ALL Street's continued fall ahead of today's crucial non farm payroll figures continued to unsettle the Irish market. Price falls were relatively insignificant, but the market will remain deeply nervous until it gets white smoke from New York.

Analysts are expecting employment to rise by around 182,000 compared to the 339,000 increase in February. Anything substantially above this 182,000 figure will merely fuel speculation of an interest rise by the Federal Reserve at its next meeting and almost certainly result in a sharp sell off on equity markets.

Domestic Exchequer borrowing and bank lending figures released yesterday had little impact on the Irish bond or equity market, confirming that Wall Street will mine the direction of the Irish markets. Bond prices in Dublin were marginally weaker at the close.

On the equity market, there was active trading in the main financials with no major price movements. AIB dealt as low as 420p before closing down 2p on the day on 425p. Bank of Ireland was down 1p on 611p.

The deteriorating industrial relations situation had no impact on Irish Life which was unchanged on 320p, while Irish Permanent was also unchanged on 590p.

Industrials were also little changed with CRH closing on 620p, while Smurfit was 1 1/2p firmer on 164p. New arrival Jermyn with big Irish property interests - opened on 176p, while - relisted World Fluids - soon to be rechristened Peterhead - dealt up 4p to 74p from its placing price.