GOOGLE, CADBURY and Kellogg’s topped a 2011 league table of companies Irish people view as being the most reputable.

An Post was the Irish-owned company that came highest in the list, followed by to retailer Smyths. It is the second year in a row Google has topped the annual RepTrak study, a comprehensive survey of corporate reputations.

The results were announced yesterday by Niamh Boyle, managing director of public relations firm Corporate Reputations, at an event in Dublin.

The study ranks the largest organisations in Ireland including indigenous, multinational and semi-State bodies. It rates how highly they are held in esteem, how much they are admired and trusted, and how the general public feels about them.

It surveys how an organisation rates in terms of: performance, innovation, leadership, products and services, governance, workplace and citizenship.

The Irish survey forms part of an international exercise. Henrik Stroier, the managing director of Denmark’s Reputation Institute, told the event Ireland was an “outlier” in having only two indigenous companies in its 10 most reputable. In Denmark, eight were Danish companies.

Other high-performing Irish companies in the top 20 included Eason, Arnotts, Dairygold and the Irish Dairy Board.

Anglo Irish Bank was once again at the bottom, finishing last out of the 119 organisations included. John Player and Sons, NTR, Irish Nationwide Building Society and AIB also ranked in the bottom five. AIB suffered the greatest drop in reputation. Iarnród Éireann, on the other hand, gained 11.55 points to put it at 66.48 points.