Eircom was once again the heaviest trader on the Irish market and added another two cents to €2.56 as Vodafone held on to its recent gains in London. Eircom is likely to trade in tandem with Vodafone until the Eircell sale is finalised and, for the present, the prospects for Vodafone are positive.

Elsewhere, the market was a mixed bag with no clear pattern. The banks were mixed with Bank of Ireland making up ground and ending 33 cents higher on €10 while AIB drifted 10 cents lower to €12. Anglo Irish continued its strong recovery and closed nine cents higher on €3.60. But Irish Life, despite an upgrade and €14 price target from Merrill Lynch, lost 28 cents to €12.52.

Among industrials, Fyffes edged two cents higher on €0.95 as the EU and the US agreed terms for ending the four year-old banana dispute. Green edged two cents higher to €7.47 - Fidelity has disclosed that it sold 1.46 million Green shares to take its stake down to 6.25 million shares or 5.93 per cent. CRH lost 20 cents to €18.35, IFG was nine cents higher on €2.54 after results in line with forecasts while Independent lost seven cents to €2.40. Ryanair was unchanged on €10.75 after upgrades from ABN Amro and Merrion and after disclosing that it has bumper bookings for the Easter weekend.

With TMT shares remaining firm, Irish technology stocks continued to improve. Boosted by good results from ARM, Parthus rebounded 11p to 75-1/2p sterling while Baltimore closed 7p higher on 92p sterling. On Nasdaq, Iona was more than $2 higher on $33.50 while in Toronto Ivernia's slump continued and the share hit a new low of C$0.25 in heavy volume of 1.2 million shares.