Fixed-term parliaments are a very grown-up way of doing politics, committing to a certain amount of time between elections and in doing so taking the wielding axe out of the claws of the opposition.

But the idea is also laughable — especially in Irish politics, where almost everything is reactive, short-sighted and parochial.

In Britain, the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act was introduced in 2011, with the aim of creating a five-year period between general elections.

When introducing the bill to the House of Commons, then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, said that “by setting the date that parliament will dissolve, our prime minister is giving up the right to pick and choose the date of the next general election”.

A significant and somewhat refreshing relinquishment of power.

The legislation put an end to between-term elections in all but the narrowest of circumstances: One such instance that allows for an out is when more than two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons vote in favour of dissolving parliament.

Ms May easily got the required backing to dissolve parliament — opposition members feared that voting against it and thus avoiding the polls would make them appear weak — and the general election scheduled for May 2020 was brought forward to June 2017.

Akin to telling a person to complete a marathon after buying their first pair of runners, setting term times for politicians might be a big ask and just a step too far. On the flipside, many who got in by the skin of their teeth would probably be relieved at such a measure.

But the process of governing in Ireland tends to be made up of a knee-jerk and even flippant series of decisions.

For politicians, who constantly have one eye on the next election and the other on the opinion polls, deciding a budget that will take care of the following 12 months can seem like a mammoth task.

And so yesterday’s announcement of a 25-year framework, with all its razzmatazz aside, must be acknowledged.

The national planning framework, or Ireland 2040 — Our Plan as it has been packaged by Government, aims to create a solid roadmap for coming decades, taking account of where citizens will live and work, how we will travel to our employment, and which hospitals we will go to when in need of care.

Of course much of the plan will probably never materialise. Long-term policies are usually the first items to be axed on the ascension of a new government.

Previous plans, such as the National Spatial Strategy (NSS), were binned well before their natural end date.

Fianna Fáil’s NSS, which identified 18 “gateways” that would become development and employment hubs, was due to run between 2002 to 2020, but in 2013 then environment minister Phil Hogan deemed it a failure and decided his government could do better.

Decentralisation, the brainchild of Charlie McGreevy, which was built around ambitions to move 10,300 Dublin-based public servants to 53 locations outside the capital before 2007, equally never fully materialised.

While a smattering of new public service and government department offices were built and some staff moved to regional towns, decentralisation was quickly abandoned.

And the reactive nature of government was again seen in recent weeks in the way yesterday’s unveiled plan received a last-minute overhaul and redraft to include more of a focus on rural areas.

Pulling last-minute all-nighters gets most students through college but is maybe not the best way to decide the route the country will take over the next two-and-a-half decades.

The hasty redrafting was pointed out by Labour’s Alan Kelly, who ironically was the minister who first began drafting the National Planning Framework when the NSS was thrown by the wayside during the Fine Gael-Labour Government.

On Wednesday, Mr Kelly said: “This plan has taken three years to write, it has had much consultations, views etc and we believe that is all a very important process. How can in the space of three to four weeks the whole plan be, to quote the Taoiseach ‘substantially changed’?

How can all the components, all the research, all the population analysis, all have changed so quickly in the space of a couple of weeks?” he asked.

Securing a plan for the country that might stay even partially intact all comes down to cross-political buy-in.

But that would require the throwing aside of a Government opportunity to claim giveaways across healthcare, education, social housing and infrastructure.

Earlier this week, ahead of Government’s Sligo-based launch, the National Planning Framework Coalition led by Mr Kelly, Éamon Ó Cuív, Michael Fitzmaurice and Eoin Ó Broin came out to strongly criticise the lack of engagement on the issue.

Efforts to shape the country through political consensus have already been tested out by the current Government.

The committee on the future of healthcare, chaired by Róisin Shortall, came up with a decade-long plan around how to tackle the health sector.

Among the agreed-upon measures in the Sláintecare report were the phased elimination of private care from public hospitals, the introduction of a Cárta Sláinte within five years that will entitle holders to access a comprehensive range of GP and hospital services based on need, as well as the shifting of care out of hospitals and into the primary and community setting.

Mr Ó Cuív called for the establishment of a cross-party committee similar to the one which examined the future of the healthcare service.

“We have to remember that we are talking about a 23-year plan and whatever happens in that period there is one thing certain — there will be changes of Government, there will be changes here in Leinster House and what we need to do is get the biggest consensus we can and to ensure that all of the largest parties and others are bought into the plan,” said Mr Ó Cuív.

Of course, Government argued that there had been a significant amount of consultation with other political parties.

A Government spokesman said there has been two formal phases of public consultation: this time last year and then again in October and November.

He added that there have been more than 40 regional events and workshops, four engagements with various

Oireachtas joint committees, feedback from an expert advisory group and detailed submissions from a range of stakeholders.

However, the plan appears to have come firmly from the government.

The unique predicament the Government finds itself in of relying on Fianna Fáil for support means it does require more co-operation, bigger-picture thinking and even consensus.

However, it is questionable whether in this country you can ever remove the politics from government.