Mr Haughey's lawyer asked yesterday that the tribunal specify the nature of the public interest or the aspect of the common good which required a breach of his client's constitutional right to privacy.
Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr Haughey, queried the tribunal's right to breach Mr Haughey's rights to confidentiality by inquiring into his banking affairs.
At the end of submissions the chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, ruled that he intended to take evidence.
He would balance the tribunal remit and duty to inquire with Mr Haughey's entitlement to confidentiality. Mr McGonigal had submitted that Mr Haughey had at all times maintained that his bank accounts were private and were not matters that should be dealt with in public.
This was a matter that had been raised by him and dealt with by the Supreme Court in Haughey v Moriarty.
Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, was proposing to go through a significant number of memoranda, not only internal memoranda of the AIB but also memos of attendances by Mr Haughey at AIB and certain correspondence from him to AIB, Mr McGonigal said.
"These in their initial prime facie state are subject to his constitutional right to his privacy.
"That privacy can only be breached in the exigencies of the common good.
"What I am seeking is clarification as to the exigencies of the common good which actually exist at this time and an explanation as to why Mr Haughey's constitutional right to privacy should be breached on this particular issue," said Mr McGonigal.
Mr Coughlan said the context of this inquiry was the tribunal's inquiry into the money trail.
It was in that context that waivers were sought and obtained from Mr Haughey's solicitors regarding his banking affairs.
The chairman, when evidence was called from AIB, deemed that the common good required that the issues be ventilated in the public arena.
It was his intention only to open documents which were previously opened in evidence and to seek Mr Haughey's assistance in coming to a proper picture of the money trail in the public interest. The chairman said these matters had been pursued at extensive length in correspondence between the solicitors for Mr Haughey and the tribunal solicitors in hundreds of pages of correspondence.
At this juncture, he was well aware of the context of the Supreme Court judgment and of the balancing of rights that had to be taken by the tribunal in seeking to reconcile the exigencies of the common good and duty to inquire into matters of urgent public importance and the rights to privacy enjoyed by Mr Haughey in his banking affairs.
In the course of the tribunal's voluminous preliminary inquiries it had sought to bear those criteria in mind.
It had excluded many matters which pertained to Mr Haughey's private affairs. "I am satisfied at this juncture that the tribunal is entitled specifically in regard to the proposed evidence in relation to Mr Haughey's relationship with the AIB, to take the evidence as being duly pursuant to the terms of reference and reflecting a considered exercise of the balancing of the tribunal's remit and duty to inquire, with Mr Haughey's entitlement to confidentiality in his banking affairs," the chairman ruled.