The future of the island’s sea services has been in limbo for months, awaiting a decision by government.

In December last year Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer said it was his intention to bring a motion on options for the long term delivery of ferry services to the April Tynwald.

That never happened and there is still no date confirmed for a Tynwald debate.

But the Department of Infrastructure now says it will respond to the Steam Packet’s offer to government before that offer expires at the end of July.

And in its Programme for Government plan, the DoI cites a target date of September this year to implement the sea services policy and strategy.

Options considered as part of a review of sea services have included nationalisation or acquisition of the Steam Packet, franchising of ferry services and keeping or extending the current user agreement.

evaluation

Focus for further evaluation was on two of those options - acquisition of the Steam Packet by a company limited by guarantee, or renegotiating the user agreement.

It has been a year now since the Steam Packet presented its offer to government which included a pledge to invest £170m in a new fleet, facilities and fare initiatives.

The Steam Packet insists it has no concerns about the continued reliability of its two vessels and says recent technical issues with the Ben-my-Chree involved parts that had been replaced as a part of recent major overhaul of its main engines.

In a statement, the DoI said: ’The offer for a new strategic sea services agreement put forward by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Ltd expires at the end of July 2017. The department will respond fully to the company’s shareholders before the expiry of the offer.’

It said the Minister would honour a ’long-standing commitment’ to take the matter to Tynwald and would do do ’at the appropriate time’.

The Manx Independent approached the Steam Packet Company for a response.

Chief executive Mark Woodward said: ’We look forward to our strategic sea services agreement offer being debated in Tynwald.

’We want to invest in new vessels, and importantly to retain Ben-my-Chree as a permanent back-up vessel. Until the SSSA is resolved, we have no concerns about the continued use and reliability of our two existing vessels.

’In respect to the recent technical issues with the Ben, we took the decision to invest in a major overhaul of both main engines to maintain a high degree of reliability. We hoped being pro-active on such an issue would be seen as a positive step.

’It is disappointing that both of the recent technical issues we have experienced have been connected to these recently overhauled units. The issue last weekend was caused by the failure of an "O" ring type seal, which had only been replaced as part of this overhaul process a month ago. We suspect this may be due to a quality control issue.’