The Irish stock market advanced for the 10th day in a row as the bull run in the financial shares showed no sign of running out of steam.

The ISEQ index of shares has now gained more than 5 per cent this week alone and is up more than 19 per cent from the start of the year.

Banking shares again proved the main force driving the market yesterday following strong results from both AIB and Irish Permanent earlier in the week and amid expectations of lower interest rates.

AIB, which beat market forecasts on Wednesday when it announced pre-tax profits of £580 million, gained a further 10p to 913p while Bank of Ireland jumped 30p to 1305p. Irish Permanent, which also reported strong results on Tuesday, advanced 10p to an all-time high 1000p although Irish Life was left out of the upward move, remaining unchanged on the day at 545p.

Dealers said that attention may now begin to focus more on Bank of Ireland which has under-performed AIB so far this year. With a greater exposure to the domestic Irish economy and with results yet to come in May, investor attention may begin to shift in that direction.

Leading industrials had a lacklustre performance as building materials group CRH, which saw some good overseas interest earlier in the week, drifted off 17p to 868p while Smurfit was down 2p at 194p and Greencore shed 5p to 375p.

Among second-liners, Kingspan again stood out, gaining 15p to 340p.