When Mr Haughey was in debt in the mid-1970s he was very active politically and was touring the country practically every day to rebuild his political career, he told the tribunal.
Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, referred to a letter dated March 25th, 1975, that Mr Haughey wrote to the AIB setting out certain proposals. The bank responded in April 8th, 1975. He asked if there was a private office at Abbeyville.
Mr Haughey replied: "I would have had a secretary mainly on political matters. At that time I was very active to reinstate my political career." He said he had been in the political wilderness but at that stage he was "partly reinstated" to the front bench.
"I was touring the country practically every day, every week, and I would be receiving a lot of political correspondence," Mr Haughey said.
"While it might appear from these documents that I was constantly occupied with my financial position, I assure you that was not so."
Mr Coughlan asked if he would be seeing much of Mr Traynor over this period when he was travelling over the country.
"I wouldn't say I'd see him very frequently, no . . . it would be on the basis that he wanted to see me or I particularly wanted to see him about something," Mr Haughey said.
Mr Haughey agreed that his dealings with Mr Traynor were mainly on practical matters. "Very, very much so but on the other hand, I think we would have a fair level of social contact - for instance we might go to each others' weddings, things like that, but he wasn't much of a socialiser." He said he dealt with Mr Traynor when he had to.
He agreed with Mr Coughlan who said every holder of public office "always has an eye or ear to his financial state of affairs because the consequences of getting into any deep waters in financial affairs, could inhibit that person from holding public office."