‘I expected to retire and get my pension at 65. Instead the government is forcing me on the dole.” So reads the text on a campaigning poster, by a photo of a sprightly looking lady who is, presumably, in her mid-sixties. It’s issued by the Stop67 coalition, launched last week in protest against the planned increase in the state pension age to 67 next year.

On radio last Thursday, Ethel Buckley, Siptu’s deputy general secretary, said people approaching retirement now had a “legitimate expectation” that they would get their pension at 65. “You cannot now turn around to those people and say that is not going to happen to you,” she insisted. What delicious logic: if you expect something to happen, it should be guaranteed.