The Isle of Man needs to wake up and ’smell the coffee’ over the threat caused by a decreasing population, Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas has warned.

Earlier this year, the Census Report revealed a surprise drop in population of more than 1,000 between 2011 and 2016, from 85,716 to 84,599.

It has sparked calls for government to do more to address the risk to the economy if the population were to continue falling.

Mr Thomas has already promised action.

He told Tynwald on Tuesday: ’We have to wake up, smell the coffee, we have an issue, it is a challenge and we have got to deal with the issue and the challenge.’

He was responding to Bill Shimmins (Middle) and warned against any attempt at denial over the figures.

’Denial is the natural first response to the need for change that the census clearly shows and uncertainty and confusion are also understandable,’ said Mr Shimmins.

’It is important that we move towards acceptance and rationalisation if we are to work towards solving the enormous demographic challenge that we face.’

Mr Thomas said: ’The most important point coming out of all of this is that we do have issues with population and that is why, having presented information more clearly, analysed it more fully than we have in previous years, we have now announced a white paper on population issues that we hope to come back with in October.’

The topic was raised initially by Jason Moorhouse (Arbory, Castletown and Malew), who wanted to know what the verification process was for Census data and whether the figures were cross-checked against other sources of information.

The downward trend in population was in contrast to figures in last year’s Isle of Man in Numbers report released by the Council of Ministers - although this year’s equivalent fits in with the Census findings.

Mr Thomas said there was a 99.9 per cent household response rate to the Census and data was cross-checked against other sources of personal information, ’such as the public electoral register and statistical data such as school rolls, birth records and GP registrations’.

In some areas, Census letters had to be re-sent due to confusion over the data required for under-16s.

Cabinet Office member David Ashford (Douglas North) said: ’The fact that the letters went out to verify the children’s data actually showed that the cross-referencing worked.’

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