Debt finance may be at its cheapest for years, but more and more companies are taking advantage of the burgeoning stock market to go public.

It's a long way from the depressing situation of a few years ago when the Irish market was bereft of new companies. Now Irish corporate financiers and stockbrokers are facing a bonanza as possibly up to 20 companies gear up for a flotation over the next 18 months.

Already in the past year-and-a-half, around a dozen companies have come to the market a mixture of heavyweights like Ryanair, Galen and Iona Technologies to smaller industrials like Athlone Extrusions, Qualceram and Donegal Creameries to smaller technology stocks like ITG, BCO, Rapid Technology and DCM newcomer SupaRule.

But the next 18 months will see the biggest Irish stock market flotation when around £1 billion worth of Telecom Eireann shares are sold by the Government, a flotation that will be heavily biased towards the smaller investor. The scale of the Telecom flotation cannot be understated and it will dwarf previous flotations involving large numbers of shareholders such as Irish Life and Irish Permanent.

It is quite conceivable that immediately after its flotation, Telecom could have well over half a million shareholders, with the flotation expected to be priced to entice in the maximum number of small investors. That expected heavy bias towards the small investor will leave most institutions heavily underweight in Telecom shares and should guarantee a lively after-market in the shares.

The First National Building Society/First Active flotation later this year will be another move towards creating a shareowning democracy, when upwards of 220,000 members of First National get free shares.

The expected flotation of Cantrell & Cochrane in early 1999, however, is expected to be a purely institutional affair with Allied Domecq unlikely to go to the bother and expense of a public share offering, when an underwritten £700 million-plus placing and introduction would suffice.

The only other definite to float in Dublin is recruitment agency Parc which is due on the market in September. But in the technology sector, market sources expect a whole raft of flotations over the next two years, including the likes of Trintech, Piercom, Raidtec, Eurologic and Lake Communications.

Another likely feature is for Nasdaq-listed Irish companies like CBT and Esat to add a Dublin listing to their existing primary listings in New York.