Almost as soon as he began to give evidence yesterday, Mr Charles Haughey said he was having difficulty.
"Mr chairman, I have to confess to being overwhelmed by all this documentation and I find it difficult to cope with it all," he said. "It is full of complex detail and a long time ago."
He made the same point a number of times during the two hours he spent giving evidence and seemed to find it hard to absorb quickly the content of documents. Mr Haughey's ability to deal with the demands to be made of him in the witness box is likely to be a recurring theme.
Mr Justice Moriarty earlier revealed that he had been given medical reports from doctors who had examined Mr Haughey, and he had been given permission to question the doctors if he needed to. He has also been given permission to have someone of his choice conduct another medical examination of Mr Haughey, though he thought it unlikely this would be necessary.
It is because of Mr Haughey's medical condition, his age and the detailed nature of the matters being examined that he is only to give evidence for two hours each day, the chairman explained.
A second theme likely to mark Mr Haughey's evidence was mentioned immediately after Mr Justice Moriarty's opening remarks. Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr Haughey, rose to question the right of the tribunal to examine Mr Haughey about his AIB accounts during the 1970s.
The setting up of the tribunal was an encroachment on Mr Haughey's right to privacy, Mr McGonigal said, and such encroachment should only be in so far as it was necessary for the exigencies of the common good.
He wanted to know what justification there was for breaching Mr Haughey's right to privacy by inquiring into his AIB bank account. He would be making this same point when the tribunal came to consider other "modules" of its proceedings.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he was satisfied the terms of reference covered Mr Haughey's AIB accounts.
Mr John Coughlan SC then began to deal with the contents of the AIB file on Mr Haughey's accounts from the 1970s. These documents were all read into the record by Mr Coughlan during one of the earliest sittings of the tribunal, in February 1999. Essentially the documents record the difficult relationship between AIB and Mr Haughey between 1971 and 1980, during which time Mr Haughey ran up an overdraft of £1.1 million, before paying it off with £750,000.
There are repeated references in the documentation to Mr Haughey having direct dealings with the bank, and this seems to be Mr Coughlan's main reason for going through the documentation.
After reading out each document yesterday he offered Mr Haughey the opportunity to take issue with the broad thrust of what was recorded. Mr Haughey did not do so, though on occasion he said the late Mr Des Traynor would have handled matters covered in a particular document. Mr Coughlan repeatedly pointed out that there was no mention of Mr Traynor.
Mr Traynor's role is likely to be the third theme running through the evidence Mr Haughey will give about his AIB overdraft. In September 1979, when Mr Haughey's debt with AIB posed a threat to his chances of replacing the late Mr Jack Lynch as leader of Fianna Fail, Mr Haughey telephoned AIB and told them he wanted to deal with the dangerous situation "once and for all".
The documents record Mr Traynor becoming heavily involved at this stage. And it records the possibility being mentioned of Mr Patrick Gallagher and two other unnamed individuals helping Mr Haughey to clear his debt.
On the day Mr Haughey was elected leader of Fianna Fail, Mr Traynor opened an account in Guinness & Mahon bank into which £750,000 was lodged over the following weeks, before being used to settle Mr Haughey's debt. There is evidence from AIB of Mr Haughey being centrally involved in settling the debt. Mr Gallagher has also given evidence of being asked by Mr Haughey to help, and of agreeing to give £300,000.
Mr Haughey will give evidence on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The evidence is creeping towards the events of 1979 and will culminate in Mr Coughlan asking Mr Haughey if he knows where the rest of the £750,000 came from. Mr Haughey may say Yes, or he may say Mr Traynor organised the money, and he doesn't know who the donors were. This will be the key moment of next week's proceedings.
Midway through his evidence yesterday, which didn't amount to much more than his jousting with Mr Coughlan about the involvement or otherwise of Mr Traynor, Mr Haughey took out glasses to help him read the AIB documents. He seemed less pompous and sure of himself than when he appeared before the McCracken tribunal three years ago, and when he climbed out of the witness box after two hours he steadied himself by resting his fingers on a nearby tabletop.
There were fewer members of the public waiting in the yard of Dublin Castle for him to emerge afterwards than there were in 1997. The former building executive who appeared before the Flood tribunal, Mr James Gogarty, attracts a bigger crowd that Mr Haughey did yesterday.