Dublin Report: It was a fairly sleepy day on the Dublin market yesterday, with the arrival of the school mid-term break prompting many investors to take a breather too.

For those left behind, Providence provided some distraction by releasing details of its Dunquin farm-out agreement with ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil and gas company.

Almost 29 million shares were traded after the announcement, with Providence's shares touching a high of eight cent. The stock closed at six cent, one cent stronger than Friday's close.

Moving up the board, the leaders were mostly in good shape at the end of the session, although volumes were fairly muted.

In the financials, AIB climbed by 16 cent to close at €18.54, having touched €18.60 in earlier trade. Bank of Ireland had more of a volatile day but shares also managed to finish strongly, up 15 cent at €14.40.

Anglo Irish was flat at €13.02, while Irish Life & Permanent was also unchanged at €17.40.

FBD rose, closing 16 cent stronger at €37.36 despite weekend suggestions that the firm's leisure business did not perform as well as expected last year. NCB has a price target of €39.40 on the stock, while Davy has pencilled in €36.50. The latter broker notes, however that it could tweak its 2006 estimates after the firm issues full-year numbers early next month.

Eircom was relatively quiet before closing unchanged at €2.07. The firm issues third-quarter results on Thursday, although an update on any takeover rumblings is not expected. Fyffes, which found out on Friday that it would have to pay 80 per cent of DCC's fees for the recent insider trading case, rose by one cent to €2.19. The fruit firm will report full-year results on March 3rd. DCC added five to close at €19.00. Volumes tailed off in CRH, with shares finishing unchanged at €26.45.

Ryanair fell by two cent to €7.70 in advance of facing the trial of Channel 4's Dispatches programme last night.