Italy boss Marcello Lippi insisted on Friday that the Fabio Cannavaro saga was at an end.

Lippi and his players arrived in Dublin on Friday evening and after visiting Croke Park, he held a brief, and at times curt, press conference in Clontarf.

The World Cup-winning manager was immediately questioned about Cannavaro's failed drugs test, and responded by emphatically claiming the matter is at an end.

He said: "It's all over, it never existed, it was never a problem.

"It's already been resolved. It's been put to bed. It was never a problem."

Lippi had been asked about Cannavaro before leaving Italy earlier today and was at pains to move on from the subject on the eve of tomorrow night's World Cup qualifying clash against the Republic of Ireland.

The 36-year-old defender is suspended for the game on disciplinary grounds, but found himself engulfed in controversy last night when it was revealed he had failed a drugs test after taking a medicine that contained the banned substance cortisone for an insect sting in August.

He had requested an exemption from taking drugs tests on the grounds of having taken a medication in an emergency situation, but his request did not include a document necessary to complete the application, and the substance was found in his system after a Serie A game at Roma.

Italy team doctor Enrico Castellacci said: "When he came to the national team, after the Roma game, he told us what had happened and he told us that without the medicine that contained cortisone he would have had a reaction, an anaphylactic shock.

"We asked Juventus for all the necessary documents regarding the medicine taken by Cannavaro and all the communication is in our possession."

Cannavaro is expected to join up with the rest of the squad on Sunday when they return home for Wednesday's final Group 8 match against Cyprus.