There were 11 bus driver vacancies in June of this year, having risen from seven in April and May.

This is the highest number of vacancies Bus Vannin has had in at least 35 months, with there being as little as none in late 2019.

The second highest number of vacancies was last seen in September and October last year with nine, according to a written response from the Department of Infrastructure to a question from Douglas North MHK David Ashford.

During TT this was particularly prevalent when the company had 10 vacancies and 20 staff off sick which affected bus timetables dramatically, according to then-Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall.

Mr Crookall explained that illness and injuries were causing staff shortages and Bus Vannin was constantly nine to 12 drivers short.

He said following the racing fortnight: ‘I believe that the staff did try to deliver the best service they could, but increased journey times may have left people waiting at stops longer than they expected, with buses often arriving 20 minutes late.’

Mr Crookall insisted no bus services had been cancelled over the TT period, which was later disputed by MHK Rob Callister.

The Department of Infrastructure plans to assess the need for all bus services across the island during its all-island review.

Meanwhile, Bus Vannin staff have taken over 660 sick days due to Covid-19 in the last year.

The figure came from a data set published by the DoI.

In the last 12 months, staff have taken 3,376 sick days overall due to problems such as allergic reactions, dental, vomitting, cancer and so on.

Within this, 663 days have been taken off due to Covid, bearing in mind it was mandated to stay indoors for 10 days or until negative results during some of this time.

When combining Covid sick days with stress, more than 1,300 days have been missed during the past year.

Last month, 467 days were missed by 39 workers for a variety of reasons – the highest in the last 12 months, the second highest being May 2022.

Approximately 104 days were missed in June by 15 employees due to Covid alone.

However, it was March that had the highest number of staff members taking time off, with 47 sick that month.

Stress and Covid were among the main reasons for the absences, as well as chronic fatigue.

When broken down, of the 661 who missed work due to stress across the year, 635.5 took sick days because of personal stress and 25.5 were work-related.

May saw the highest number of sick days taken due to stress with seven workers taking 97 days altogether.

In June, Five employees took time away with personal stress and three missed time for work-related stress.

This resulted in a total of 107 days absence last month.

The data set also detailed days missed due to allergic reactions, musculoskeletal issues, blood disorders and colds and viral illnesses, with Covid documented separately.