Rural policing is facing a fresh threat as falling Garda numbers begin to hit detective units and specialist squads hard.

It would be very difficult to exaggerate the depth of public revulsion at the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

More resources, not more laws, are what is needed to combat the threat posed by serious armed criminals, according to a former top detective inspector.

Gardaí said there was “no doubt” the killers of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe knew he was a garda when they shot him dead without warning.

In Dundalk Garda Station, the one and only station he served in, his colleagues and friends, many of whom worked during the worst of the Troubles, are still coming to terms with the death of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

MEMBERS of An Garda Síochána are in deep shock; the enormity of the cold-blooded killing of a colleague has not yet fully sunk in.