On his first day in the witness box, Charles Haughey told the Moriarty Tribunal about debts of nearly £300,000 he ran up in the Seventies and his attempts to pay them off. Mr Haughey said Des Traynor was in charge of his finances at that time.
The former Taoiseach said that he was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul when he was asked about a loan from Northern Bank that went to reduce his debt with AIB. Mr Haughey frequently said he could not recall many of the financial meetings and discussions being referred to.
At a quarter past nine Charles Haughey's Mercedes swept into Dublin Castle. He sat in the back, alone. About 60 queued to hear his evidence and chanting protestors threw coins. An hour and a half later the questioning began, but first Mr Justice Moriarty reminded people that Mr Haughey was a witness like anybody else and deserved courtesy.
Mr Haughey was asked about an AIB debt that by 1973 had risen to just under £300,000, and his attempts to reduce it. He said he was overwhelmed by the amount of documentation, it was complex and difficult, but that he would try to help. Again and again he said that Des Traynor had handled his financial affairs during this time. He would have arranged the loans from other banks.
Tribunal lawyers challenged this, saying that bank memos showed Mr Haughey's solicitors had passed cheques on to the bank, not Des Traynor. Perhaps Des Traynor had instructed them to do so, Mr Haughey suggested. Lawyers asked why Des Traynor was not present at meetings Mr Haughey had with the bank, meetings at which Mr Haughey says he was lectured. I was the client, he said.
It is three years since this Tribunal was established. Its remit is to investigate payments to Charles Haughey and Michael Lowry and to see if any political favours were given in return. The tribunal inquiries have reached to the very top of Irish political and business life. The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has sat in the witness box, as have some of the country's wealthiest businessmen, Ben Dunne, Dermot Desmond, and Michael Smurfit.
The Tribunal has established that Charles Haughey got more than £8.5m between 1979, when he assumed office as Taoiseach, and 1996. That is apart from his salary and allowances. It has heard dramatic evidence about how funds raised for the late Brian Lenihan, a close personal friend of Mr Haughey's, went astray. It has heard of Mr Haughey's lavish lifestyle: Charvet shirts and expensive dinners at Le Coq Hardi.
