Market report: The Dublin market was convulsed by highly damaging news for Elan's key drug, Tysabri. Elan shares were down in Dublin by 56 per cent at €2.40.

The Iseq index was down by 62.21 points at 5,984.88, although Elan's impact on the Iseq has seriously declined since the first Tysabri scare at the end of February.

Despite the huge slump in the shares, some traders were sanguine about the company's prospects.

"The company will not go bust or anything like that. It has enough cash to pay its debts for several years, but it will probably limp along for the foreseeable future in terms of share price," was the verdict of one trader.

Next week, Mercers, the financial consulting firm, will be releasing its last update on how Irish pension funds are performing and this may give some indication of Elan-related damage, said a trader.

The only upside for shareholders in Dublin was takeover talk. "There is plenty of talk about a potential takeover at these share levels with the likes of Wyeth being mentioned. But the debts may make this unlikely," said one trader.

The share price could now be at the mercy of short-term retail investors, said another.

"A lot of the bigger investors have gotten out of there, so they are being replaced by smaller guys," he said.

Elsewhere the market was relatively quiet. Anglo Irish Bank was up 43 cent (2.2 per cent)at €19.33.

Traders said this was a significant bounce back from earlier this week when there was concern about the possibility of new accounting standards affecting its profits.

Traders claimed the bank's management was to blame for the softening of the price earlier this week.One of the other gainers on the day was Ryanair, which picked up mainly because of a slight fall in crude oil prices.

The shares were up 14 cent (2.27 per cent) at €6.05. This was in line with similar gains for airline stocks around the world.

Settlement Day: April 5th