The Dublin market enjoyed its third straight day of strong share price rises by banking stocks which sent it almost 3 per cent higher and through the psychologically important 5,000 mark.
At 12.22pm, the Iseq index of Irish shares was 2.9 per cent higher at 5,036, gain of 142 points.
Financial stocks provided most of the uplift with early gains reinforced by better than expected numbers from Bank of America.
Dublin analysts said money appeared to be coming back into banking stocks.
The day's biggest gainer was Irish Life and Permanent, rising 13.5 per cent to €6.43 followed by Anglo Irish Bank up 8.3 per cent to €5.85.
Irish Life shares have rebounded strongly from lows of €3.70 last Wednesday and at its current price has a market cap of €1.714 billion.
Bank of Ireland stock added 6.1 per cent to €5.91 while AIB added 4.7 per cent to €8.90.
Other "interest rate sensitive stocks", such as building firms were also higher today, enjoying the sharp fall in the price of oil from arouind $145 to around the $130-a-barrel mark.
Grafton added over 7 per cent to €3.51 while Kingspan was almost 6 per cent higher at €7.10.
Airline stocks were among the day's fallers with Ryanair off 3.5 per cent on €3.11 and Aer Lingus over 2 per cent lower at €1.34.
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