Scarcely fair to the Gardai - look at their use of technical evidence in the Rachel O'Reilly killing, where they secured a conviction using a combination of mobile phone call, text and location records, CCTV cameras from a wide area and time scale, and witness statements - it was a tour de force any police service would be proud of.

They're brave too - Irish people will remember a case in the 1980s or 1990s when two unarmed gardaí stopped a heavily-armed IRA lunatic in a car and persuaded him to come to the station, where he pulled a gun on them. They then followed him and recaptured him.

Set up by a War of Independence gunman who was determined that the force, unlike the British police in Ireland, would carry no arms, their motto is: "The Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people."

Sure, there are gobshites in the Garda Síochána, as there are in every police force, but there are many admirable men and women who do their jobs well and bravely.

As for Ian Bailey's guilt or innocence, if the French investigation finds him guilty, the European court appeal system is open to him.