Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan has insisted the island’s economic growth is in a ’good position’.

He made the assertion after confirming that the government has yet to identify exactly how it is going to make the £15 million savings it has committed to making by 2022-23.

The government launched a SAVE programme, targeting multi-million pound savings, but Mr Cannan admitted it may not deliver all the efficiencies needed.

Mr Cannan told Tynwald last week: ’I remain confident, at the moment, that our economic growth is in a good position, and with our cost control measures that we have currently applied both to pay and department spending in other areas, that with a good wind and good fortune with us the predictions and forecasts that we have made will deliver a smooth passage for government finances through a very tricky period in 2022-23.’

He was responding to questions from Lawrie Hooper (LibVannin, Ramsey) who highlighted that a large part of the £15 million savings target was ’unallocated’ in terms of where the savings would be made.

Mr Cannan said Mr Hooper was right to identify it as ’one of the risks that we face’.

He said of the SAVE programme: ’While we have secured a number of savings and initiated further project work, with business cases to be developed, it is fair to say that securing savings through this route has been challenging and continues to be so.’

He said he was confident that further savings and efficiencies could be achieved and that he would update Tynwald on the programme before the summer.

But he warned: ’I am also alive to the fact that this route may not deliver all the savings that we require.

’Logically, in the event that the SAVE control mechanism cannot fully deliver then other measures will need to be instigated to achieve the highlighted objective: to meet the revenue gap due to the depletion of the public sector pensions reserve. ’