MARKET REPORT:ACTIVITY ON the Irish stock market yesterday mirrored that on the slushy streets and roads around the country, with trading volumes low and the Iseq ending the day flat.

“It was dull stuff,” said one trader. “Volumes were light all day; they were hardly enough to pay the lighting bill.”

The three main banks were once again the main fallers, with investors showing little appetite for the stocks until the Government shows its hand on its recapitalisation programme.

AIB was down by just under 13 per cent to €1.152; Bank of Ireland was 7.3 per cent off at €0.584; while Irish Life Permanent was 6.5 per cent down at €1.45.

“The overseas guys are avoiding the Irish banks until they have some information on the recapitalisation,” one trader told The Irish Times.

Brian Cowen’s proposals to save €2 billion this year on public expenditure also failed to excite the market. “We were hoping for more leadership from the Government, but in the end we didn’t get it,” one trader said.

Ryanair was among the gainers yesterday, finishing the day up 2.6 per cent at €3.15. This followed some positive reaction overseas from brokers to the company’s announcement on Monday that it would, after all, make a profit in the current financial year.

Ryanair also announced yesterday that passenger traffic in January rose by 11 per cent year-on-year to 58.1 million. Its load factor for the month was static at 69 per cent.

Other gainers included clinical research company Icon, which rose by 6.6 per cent to €16, and pharma group Elan, which was up 4.2 per cent at €6.

Dragon Oil, which has interests in offshore Turkmenistan, continued its good run, finishing up 4.2 per cent at €1.75.

Settlement date: February 6th