Cancellation of Treasury Stock

Bank of Ireland announces that on 5 November 2004 it has cancelled 25 million units of Ordinary Stock of nominal value of Euro0.64 each ("Ordinary Stock").

As part of its stock repurchase programme, Bank of Ireland has in the past acquired Ordinary Stock which has been held as Treasury Stock, as opposed to cancelling it. Prior to this cancellation, the level of Treasury Stock held exceeded the legal maximum permissible by 0.3%. This arose from the inadvertent failure to include stock (amounting to 2.3%), held non-beneficially by an assurance subsidiary of the Group, in the total figure for Treasury Stock.

Following the cancellation of Ordinary Stock, Bank of Ireland holds 58,667,408 units of Ordinary Stock, acquired as part of its stock repurchase programme, as Treasury Stock. The total number of units of Ordinary Stock in issue (excluding Ordinary stock held as Treasury Stock) is 966,448,081 and the total number of units of preference stock in issue is 4,902,688.

5 November 2004

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Enquiries:-

Dan Loughrey,
Head of Group Corporate Communications
Tel:+ 353-1-632 3833