Former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey told the tribunal that Mr Des Traynor took over the general management of his "difficult financial affairs" in the early 1960s when he became minister for justice.
Mr Haughey was asked by Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, about a document giving an AIB history of Mr Haughey's account from September 1971 when his personal account was overdrawn by £244,000 and the Rath Stud account was overdrawn by £11,000. This continued until August 1974 when the net debit was £97,133 and special account debit was more than £72,600.
Mr Coughlan said that from 1971 up to 1973, money was raised with Northern Bank Finance Corporation. Asked if he could in general terms remember meetings or discussions with AIB over that period, Mr Haughey said he could remember that meetings did take place.
"Now, I would be, with the best of endeavours, I would be hazy about the details of any one particular meeting or even who was there, but I think I could say that generally speaking that there was a pattern and that was a pattern of my being invited in from time to time to show cause."
Mr Coughlan said it appeared to show a pattern of the bank trying to get the indebtedness reduced. In late 1973 and early 1974, certain negotiations must have taken place with Northern Bank Finance Corporation to raise £150,000. "Yes, I would be fairly clear that that was almost certainly handled by Des Tray nor," Mr Haughey said.
It would certainly have been Mr Traynor who approached them, and he would not be able to recall any of the other circumstances, he said. He thought he could agree with the situation outlined that money was borrowed from NBFC with which to reduce the AIB indebtedness, but that would have been handled by Mr Traynor.
Mr Coughlan asked if he would have had discussions with Mr Traynor. "Not necessarily. Mr Traynor from a long time before this was really managing my finances. I was appointed parliamentary secretary in 1960 and was appointed minister for justice about a year later.
"At that time, I left the firm of Haughey Boland and Co, and Mr Traynor on my departure would have been made a partner in Haughey Boland and from then on he would have had to take it on himself or on behalf of the firm, the general management of my difficult financial affairs and overseeing them, as it were."
Mr Haughey agreed with Mr Coughlan that he would have had contact with Mr Traynor of the officials of NBFC at least to the extent of signing documents. Mr Haughey agreed.
Mr Haughey said he had a clear recollection that the bank manager in Dame Street was a Mr Feelan. He was a personal friend as well as manager, and his contact was mainly with him as far as invitations into the bank went.
Asked if he was informed by Mr Feelan that the account was being viewed seriously higher up in the bank as far as board level in the early 1970s, Mr Haughey replied: "Not particularly, I don't think, not at that stage. I had an account with them and it was increasing and I would imagine they must have been concerned about it, but Mr Feelan was, I think he was one of the old-style bank managers and very gentlemanly and he wouldn't have been in any way aggressive or anything like that. He would have drawn my attention to the fact that the account was rising."
Mr Coughlan referred to an internal AIB memo dated January 31st, 1974, addressed to the regional general manager for the north Leinster region. It referred to the sale of 17.5 acres of Mr Haughey's land to the adjoining Cement Roadstone for £140,000.