This paper presents results on charged Higgs boson production, based o
n LEP data collected at root s = 172 GeV, that complement the previous
DELPHI results obtained at centre of mass energies up to 161 GeV. The
charged Higgs bosons are assumed to be pair produced and to decay eit
her into a quark pair or into tau nu(tau). The three different possibl
e final states are included in the analysis. Data from rings imaging C
herenkov and microvertex detectors are used to identify the quarks as
a cs pair, The number of candidates found is compatible with the backg
round expected from standard processes. Combining the results of the p
resent analysis with those of the previous analysis at lower energies,
a new lower mass limit for the charged Higgs boson is set at 54.5 Gev
/c(2). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.