Just over 25% of small Irish shareholders in Vodafone have taken up an offer by the telecommunications company to sell their shares free of charge.

In the ten weeks since the offer was introduced in February, just over 27,000 Irish shareholders with an average of 27 shares each have availed of the offer while more than 76,000 have not responded.

Just under 61,000 or slightly over a quarter of the 231,000 shareholders holding between 51 and 1,000 shares have responded to an offer to sell their shares at a discounted price

The Vodafone offer expires in three weeks time on May 24th. The company hopes to clean up its share register - some 80% of its small shareholders are in Ireland.

Many Irish people were issued with the shares after originally investing in Telecom Eireann (now Eir) when it was floated in 1999.

Revenue has determined that investors would need to sell their shares for €4.58 to make a profit - they are currently trading for under £2.20, meaning that 16 years on there is little chance of these investors breaking even.