Mr Des Traynor's former secretary said she received no remuneration for work she did on the Ansbacher accounts but that "gifts were made to my account from time to time".
Ms Joan Williams said a "reasonably substantial amount" was credited to her Ansbacher account in late 1994 or early 1995 when her association with the accounts ceased, a few months after Mr Traynor died.
She said she was unaware of the balance on her account at that stage.
Asked did she ever make a withdrawal on her account, she said she did on one occasion to purchase a car. "I think I withdrew about £7,000 or £8,000." This withdrawal was arranged through Mr Padraig Collery, who operated the Ansbacher accounts in Ireland.
Asked was she never curious about the balance on her account, she replied: "Perhaps I was curious, but I felt it was out of reach . . . and I always looked on it as money that, if you like, I never had, so I never missed it. It wasn't as though I had invested money."
She agreed she felt it was out of reach probably only after the McCracken tribunal began.
The tribunal also heard yesterday that Ms Williams's account was one of only three Ansbacher accounts from which no deductions were made in July 1998 to pay the legal fees of the Cayman banker, Mr John Furze, in his challenge to the McCracken tribunal. Ms Williams said she had no knowledge of the deductions and did not know why her account would have been excluded.
The deductions were made while Mr Collery was on a secret trip to the Cayman Islands. Ms Williams said she had no idea that Mr Collery intended to make the trip. She had no contact with Mr Collery for at least a year.
Mr Justice Moriarty asked whether it would be fair to describe Ms Williams as "a trusted personal assistant rather than a mere secretary", given that she had acted as a signatory on accounts which were under Mr Traynor's control.
Ms Williams replied: "No, I never regarded myself as a personal assistant. I was really just purely a secretary."
