The jury in the trial of a taxi driver accused of the rape of two young women will resume deliberating on its verdicts tomorrow.
The driver, who is 50 and from Dublin, is accused of raping two young women on separate nights in 2022.
He has pleaded not guilty and told gardaí the young women had consented to sex.
The court heard that both women had been working, socialising and drinking in the city centre.
The first incident took place in June 2022 and the second in August of that year.
Both women found themselves in a taxi driven by the accused while on their way home from a night out and each said they woke to find they were being raped by the driver.
In her closing speech, prosecuting counsel Gerardine Small told the jurors that consent to a sexual act must be free and voluntarily given.
She said a person who was asleep or unconscious could not consent and if a person could not consent because of alcohol or drugs, then they were incapable of consent.
Ms Small said it was unlikely that two young women, who did not know each other, would make similar accusations against the same man within six or seven weeks of each other.
Ms Small told the jury the man was a public service vehicle licence holder whose job it was to get the two young women home. But she said that was not what he did.
He preyed on vulnerabilities - and the fact that both girls were drunk and very sleepy, she said.
The man claims that in each case the interactions with the women were instigated by them and were consensual.
The court heard defence evidence from three other women who said they had consensual sex with the same driver on other occasions in the back of his taxi.
One of the women said she would never have had sex with him if she had been sober.
Defence counsel Lorcan Staines told the jurors they were not there to decide on morals or whether the man's behaviour was appropriate, but to decide on his guilt or innocence without emotion.
In his closing speech, Mr Staines said there was no doubt this was an appalling case and the picture painted of his client’s actions was deeply unpleasant.
However he said the case was not about morals, or appropriateness or his future employment.
He told them they had to be sure about his guilt and if they accepted his account of what had happened was reasonably possible, then they had to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He said the unpleasant truth was that the young woman did not remember how the encounter had begun.
He told the jurors that a verdict of not guilty did not mean the man had acted appropriately or that he was a good man.
All it meant was that they had a reasonable doubt.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott told the jury it must consider the two charges separately and must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt if it is to return guilty verdicts.
