Financials help ISEQ finish up for the week

It was a good performance from the financials today which meant Dublin's stock exchange finished at 5,336.92 up 28.76 points.

Despite the finding that the Allied Irish Bank overcharged customers for years, their shares jumped 19c to €12.39. The Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority found AIB overcharged customers and broke the law by failing to notify the regulator of increased foreign exchange costs. The bank was today forced to pay out €34.2m to customers.

Anglo Irish Bank also showed a rise today, 9c to €12.92, as did Irish Life and Permanent who rose modestly by 4c to €12.30. The Bank of Ireland remained at €10.68.

Meanwhile, Ryanair stock fell back to yesterday's €4.70 level by the day's close after a 9c rise earlier in the day. The company is at the centre of news reports today after it emerged people were seated on toilets on an overcrowded flight from Girona in Spain to London's Stansted airport.

It is thought the people seated on the toilets were Ryanair staff. Ryanair said the incident occurred because too many off-duty staff were allowed on board.

The pharmaceutical sector saw the biggest riser of the day with Elan going up 29c to €17.79 while WarnerChilcott rose by 13c to finish at €9.09.

Shares in construction were mixed. Risers were Abbey (up 15c to €8.45), McInerney (up 5c to €5.35) and CRH (up 6c to €18.16). Grafton saw their stock fall 9c to €6.56, while Heiton and Kingspan showed more modest falls of 3c and 2c to finish at €6.17 and €4.88 respectively. Readymix stayed at €1.60.