So it appears Harcourt Developments, the owner of the Titanic Quarter in Belfast, is the latest Irish company to set sail for foreign shores, where it will find a cove to shelter from public scrutiny of its financial affairs.

It was revealed on these pages yesterday that Harcourt, which is owned by Donegal developer Pat Doherty and his family, has effectively transferred ownership of the company to an Isle of Man company, Benissa, which counts his son Nick among its directors.

It has since emerged that this piece of group-restructuring gymnastics, achieved by banging ownership of its shares through several different entities in Ireland and the Isle of Man in a single day last week, has been coupled with a re-registering of Harcourt Developments in Dublin as an unlimited company.

Harcourt can now have its accounting cake and eat it.

As it is unlimited, it does not have to file detailed public accounts in the Companies Registration Office.

So its creditors, rivals and the pesky reprobates in the media will no longer be able to turn up anything about the financial performance of Harcourt, which is currently a client of the taxpayer-owned National Asset Management Agency.

But because it is now ultimately owned by a private, limited Isle of Man outfit, it still effectively enjoys limited liability if it were ever to go bust, of which there is currently no suggestion, of course.

But if the last six years have taught us anything, it must be that anything is possible.

In past decades, only the companies owned by the wealthiest tycoons, or those in the rudest financial health, took the risk of going unlimited.

If an unlimited outfit hits the wall, its owners’ other assets can potentially come into play.

The Isle of Man loophole has been relentlessly exploited by all manner of Irish companies, big and small, in recent years. But if the risk of these companies going unlimited has been eroded, onto whose shoulders has that risk been shifted?