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We are paying the price for State policy that created a globalised brand of cute hoorism, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE

LAST WEEK, the Guardiannewspaper of London reported on its attempts to track down various British companies which had supposedly relocated their headquarters to Dublin. At the listed HQ of Henderson Global Investments in Pembroke Street, the receptionist said: “They are not here a lot of the time.” The address in Spencer Dock given as the HQ of Tarsus, a business media group, turned out to be simply that of its tax advisers. “I have,” the receptionist said, “never heard of them.” The Dublin head office of WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, has about eight employees. United British Media has a prestigious address in Merrion Square, but just five or six people work there. And so on.