The couple at the centre of the Croke Park trespass case have finally been declared innocent.
Ms Sinead Duffy (23), from Dublin, and Mr John Clarke (24), from Cork, both students, were not in court yesterday to hear the final instalment of a legal wrangle where one day they had pleaded guilty to trespassing on the GAA pitch and the next they learned the Director of Public Prosecutions considered they may not have committed any crime.
Last September, they threw themselves on the mercy of the judge and promised to pay €500 each to charity after Dublin District Court heard gardaí found Ms Duffy "in a state of undress" in the middle of the pitch on the night before the Clare/Kilkenny All-Ireland hurling final.
Mr Clarke was lying beside her and they admitted they had got in by climbing over the Jones Road gate.
Judge James Scally put the case back to allow them come up with the donations before passing sentence.
But by then the DPP had read newspaper reports of the case and instructed gardaí to get another adjournment so that he could consider the case further.
In February, a State solicitor told the court the DPP was withdrawing the charges, but Judge Scally said he wanted a full explanation for this as it may be setting a precedent given the circumstances where the defendants had already pleaded guilty and were simply awaiting sentence.
Yesterday, a solicitor for the DPP argued there was ample case law permitting a judge to change his mind about a case at any stage and, in this case, he was requesting the charges be withdrawn.
Judge Scally said he had listened to the DPP's submissions and researched the matter himself and he believed he was within his powers to vary any order before a final penalty is imposed providing such a request is made.
"It is the DPP requesting the charges be withdrawn and I am well within my powers to accede to that request."
He also had no wish to prolong the matter so that the two people involved "could get on with their lives".
The couple's solicitor, Mr Peter Woods, who at the original hearing asked that they be treated leniently by quoting George W. Bush - "When I was young and irreponsible, I was young and irresponsible" - said that notwithstanding yesterday's decision, Father Peter McVerry's charity for homeless boys in Dublin would still be getting the €1,000 donation promised by his clients.