The best explanation for the recent behaviour of senior gardai and a series of Ministers for Justice is that they are having a laugh. Did they, when the latest scandal erupted over “financial irregularities” at Templemore training college, gather together for a snigger about what bullshit they might fling at the people this time?

Perhaps top cop Noirin O’Sullivan suggested amid gurgles and chortles from the guardians of democracy, why don’t I just say that that meeting never happened, so nobody can push me about what I was told?

“Brilliant!” the response might have come in a chorus, all present reassuring one another that they’d made the right choice and no mistake when they’d handed that woman the top job.