The Early Days of a Business Giant
It would be an apt description to say Peter Sutherland is a bulldog of a man with wide strong shoulders having captained the UCD team as a prop when he was younger. He also played for Lansdowne and was captain there as well. A tough, domineering forward, he has suffered several injuries including a broken nose. His great regret was that he wasn’t picked for Ireland (it’s one of two – he has always regretted not becoming the European Commission president). School, college and rugby – they were the three main passions of his youth. Even now, after all the money he has earned, his home is in Donnybrook, just a mile from each, he also has a flat in South Kensington and a house near Marbella.
He was a rising star of the Dublin Bar, combining a convivial nature with a competitive streak and fierce intellect. But life as a barrister was never likely to sustain him. Sutherland was cut out for big-time business and politics, for the hazy interface of wealth and power. In 1981 Garret FitzGerald made him Ireland’s Attorney-General. He was just 35 – the youngest in the country’s history.
Back then was also a time of great political turbulence – and violence. He was heavily involved in the first extradition case of an IRA member to Northern Ireland. “He’s totally opposed to physical force – he’s not a traveller,” said one of his close colleagues.
It was back in 1985 that he became Ireland’s European commissioner. It was a defining moment. “Going to Brussels heralded the most significant part of my life,” he said. He was completely pro-European and became a close colleague and friend of the French EC president Jacques Delors. As well as this he was also architect of the EU’s new competition policy and to his enormous pride, he was the first commissioner to be given the Gold Medal of the European Parliament during his tenure.
Sutherland never landed the position he most desired however. Three times he was put forward as a candidate for EC president and on each occasion he was knocked back. What sets Sutherland apart from the rest is that he doesn’t let setbacks get in the way of whichever goal he has set his sights on. What the next success story will be for Sutherland is anyones guess.
