Iseq: 3,229.11 (-253.79) Settlement date: October 10th:IT WAS another hellish day on the Irish market yesterday, as the Iseq 7.1 per cent to finish at 3,299 as bad news from the banking sector dragged the index down.

As one broker described it, a "tsunami of bad news" keeps coming, and the main fear in the markets yesterday was the outlook for the British banking sector, with the future of Royal Bank of Scotland in particular looking uncertain. Moreover, despite presenting at a Merrill Lynch banking conference yesterday, investors failed to react positively to the stories being sold by the Irish banks.

Irish banks also fell on the news that Dankse Bank, the Danish parent company of National Irish Bank (NIB), would incur a write-down for the third quarter due, in part, to commercial property loans at NIB.

Anglo Irish Bank was again the worst performer yesterday, as it lost 98 cent or 24.6 per cent of its value to close down at €3.005.

Irish Life Permanent also had another torrid day as it saw its share price decline by almost 95 cent or 18.9 per cent, to finish on €4.053. Both Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland finished the day in negative territory, with AIB dropping 90 cent or 14.1 per cent to close at €5.50 and Bank of Ireland losing just over 29 cent, or 7.3 per cent, to finish at €3.709.

Outside of financials, trading was relatively quiet, although a major sell-off in Waterford Wedgwood saw trading volumes in the share reach 55 million.

On the positive side, Elan added 47 cent or 6.9 per cent to its share price to climb to € 7.27, while construction stocks CRH and Kingspan also out-performed. CRH marginally increased its share price by 29 cent to € 15.70, while Kinsgpan added a cent to its share price to close on €6.11.

Following Icelandic food group Bakkavor's sale of its stake in the food group, Greencore started closed up 1.2 per cent on €1.437.