Vodafone’s share price rose more than 5 percent yesterday to 239p as investors anticipated a possible mega merger deal with the European cable group, Liberty Global, which owns UPC here in Ireland.

The merits of such a merger have long been mooted, but this week the owner of Liberty Global, John Malone said a deal with Vodafone would make sense if the latter was willing to split off its Western European networks from those in emerging markets.

Mr Malone, who has been buying many trophy assets in Ireland, described the value of this mooted break-up in typically colourful terms.  He compared Vodafone’s mobile networks in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands – and presumably Ireland – as “a big banana in a jar. The question is; how do you get your hand out of the jar with the banana.”

Vodafone, which has more than two million mobile phone subscribers in Ireland and thousands of shareholders, haven’t answered that question yet.

Last month the Irish division of the global mobile phone company reported a 14 percent drop in pre-tax profits, down by €17m to just over €100m for the year to the end of March. Revenues were 1.4 percent lower in the same period at just over €1bn

It is the largest mobile operator in Ireland with 2.1m customers of whom more than half are smartphone users. The number of smartphone customers rose 184,000 over the past year.

Vodafone Ireland paid a dividend of €80m to its parent last year, down from €150m the previous year.