The Dublin market failed to respond to the stimulus provided by the European Central Bank's decision on Thursday to cut interest rates by half a percentage point. Instead volumes were low and the overall ISEQ index barely made it into positive territory. A weak opening by the Dow Jones Industrial Average was an added hindrance, said dealers.

While the markets welcomed the rate cut, many dealers expressed concern about how financial institutions would now manage their margins. Partly reflecting this and the weak Dow was a five cent fall for AIB which closed at €15.75 (£12.40) in sluggish trading.

Bank of Ireland was able to produce a small rise of 15 cents to close at €19.35 (£15.24). Other financials failed to perform, with Irish Life down 10 cents at €9 (£7.09), while Irish Permanent was unchanged at €14 (£11.03).

Rumours about potential takeovers of Powerscreen continued to circulate and this was the most likely reason for the small rise in its price to €2.20 (£1.73) from €2.15.

Despite predictions that it would only announce modest profit increases on Tuesday, Smurfit was up three cents at €1.84 (£1.45).

The regular constraints on its earnings - overcapacity and lower prices - are expected to feature in the chairman's statement. However, dealers said while those problems were there, a lot of overcapacity had been dealt with in the last few months and the outlook was rosier.

It was a poor day for property stocks with Dunloe Ewart failing to budge, Green Property, falling 25 cents to €5.25 (£4.13) and Sherry FitzGerald remaining unchanged at €2.30 (£1.81), on its second day of trading.

The other main mover on the day was Seafield, which announced a two thirds increase in pre-tax profits to £1.09 million. The bid from British company Imari was the other main reason behind its rise from 18 cents to 20 cents (16p).