BREAKING UP IS not so hard to do – sometimes it’s as easy as pushing a button.

One lucky punter will get the chance on Friday to destroy the luxury BMW once owned by former Anglo-Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick. The 1992-reg Beamer will be crushed on the same day that the country goes to the polls. The car was bought by National Recycling Ltd in a vehicle auction – it had been repossessed from FitzPatrick last year.

When the recycling company discovered who its former owner was, they put the car up for a charity auction competition on eBay, with the anonymous winner getting to push the button on the crusher after they bid €3,150. The Irish Examiner reports that the car will now go under the big metal pincer this Friday at 3pm at Station Road, Clondalkin, Dublin.

The smashing of FitzPatrick’s former swish-mobile puts a symbolic full stop to a notorious era in our recent history. But how does it rate compared to the symbolic destruction of something like Iraqi dictator’s Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad to signify the end of his brutal regime?

Or is it more along the lines of the revenge exacted by the late Lisa Left Eye Lopes, from TLC, on her footballer boyfriend? Click here to see her describing how she burned down Andre Rison’s mansion (and, incidentally, bashed the windshield in his Mercedes – those luxury cars attract the hits, don’t they?)