Banks among main movers on ISEQ

The busiest stocks in a relatively quiet day's trading on the ISEQ were:

Bank of Ireland 10.670

Allied Irish Banks PLC 12.280

Eircom Group PLC 1.500

IAWS Group PLC 10.000

Heiton Group PLC 6.500

Tesco PLC shares were unchanged this morning at €4.14.

In a trading statement today, Tesco its sales for the 12 weeks to May 22 rose by 12% compared with the same period a year earlier.

UK sales were up 11%. This figure was 7.8% when the effect of new stores was stripped out.

Tesco does not publish separate trading statements for Ireland, but spokesman John Church said Ireland "in common with our other internationsl operations", is performing well and had contributed to the overall positive report.

The international sales figure, which includes the Republic of Ireland operations, showed 24% growth.