The top-level inquiry is probing claims that the Englishman . . . who worked as a freelance reporter in west Cork at the time . . . was targetted falsely for killing du Plantier almost 10 years ago.

In further explosive allegations, a man was offered a significant quantity of illegal drugs and cash if he could provide damaging information against Bailey, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

The new allegations were passed to the special garda team working under Assistant Garda Commissioner Ray McAndrew. McAndrew was hand-picked by Commissioner Noel Conroy to lead the internal probe last year, after a key witness claimed that she had been pressurised by members of the force into falsely identifying Bailey.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier (39) was battered to death near her home in Schull, west Cork, on 23 December 1996. No one has ever been charged in relation to her death, although Ian Bailey was arrested two months after her killing.

Local shopkeeper Marie Farrell initially claimed Bailey was the man she saw at Kealfadda Bridge near du Plantier's rural home on the night of the killing. However, she claimed last year that her initial statements were false.

She claims that she made them out of fear that gardai would expose the fact that she was meeting another man on the night of the murder.

Speaking from her Paris home to the Sunday Tribune this weekend, Sophie Toscan du Plantier's mother, Marguerite Bouniol, severely criticised the Irish justice system for failing to catch her daughter's murderer. She is deeply critical of the office of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) for not bringing a charge in the case.

"A French judge has attempted to obtain the Irish police files under a rogatory commission, which permits the transfer of such material.

The judge has never got a satisfactory answer to explain why this file has not been sent to the French authorities. I do not see this as a problem caused by the Irish police, but a problem with the Irish justice system."

Marguerite and her husband Georges, Sophie's father, will attend a special mass in their daughter's honour at Goleen in west Cork next Sunday. Marguerite said that the family had taken "much comfort and support" from the local people of West Cork.

The McAndrew inquiry is preparing a draft report for Conroy, which is likely to be finalised within the next few weeks, it is understood.