The Steam Packet has hit back at comments made by the public health director when she suggested there may have been a lack of truthfulness by the company.

An independent inquiry has been launched into how the Steam Packet came to be the suspected source of a major Covid outbreak in the island last month.

Dr Henrietta Ewart told Thursday’s Covid briefing said she had a meeting with the Steam Packet on January 25 to discuss a relaxation of the isolation rules for their island-based staff.

But at an earlier briefing on February 18 she told reporters that she had been unaware that seafarers had not been following the rules.

’We were talking on the basis of bringing in mitigations,’ she told Thursday’s briefing.

She said no one from the Steam Packet at the January meeting had said that the restrictions weren’t in place. ’The Steam Packet did not mention that - whether that is constituting deliberate lack of truthfulness or not I wouldn’t like to speculate,’ she said.

But Steam Packet chief executive Mark Woodward, in a statement issued on Friday insisted there had there has ’been absolutely no "lack of truthfulness", speculative or otherwise, on behalf of the company’.

He said the fact that Manx-based crew did not isolate had been discussed at the meeting, which actually took place on February 3.

Mr Woodward said: ’It has always been the company’s understanding, as communicated in various emails to government, that Manx-based crew who do not leave the ship while undertaking their normal round-trip duties do not need to isolate on return to the island.

’This fact has never been hidden from anyone. The Chief Minister, Health Minister and the director of public health herself have been in receipt of emails from the company which clearly state that Manx-based crew are able to mix freely in the community while off-duty.’

He said the Steam Packet has implemented strict protocols on board to mitigate the risk of transmission both between resident and non-resident crew and between crew and passengers.

Mr Woodward said the meeting on February 3 was to discuss the individual isolation requirements for a Manx-based Captain who would potentially have to disembark Manannan after taking her to Liverpool for scheduled dry-docking.

After returning from this trip, the Manx Captain would have had to isolate in a separate property from his family and he was ’understandably reluctant to do so’, said Mr Woodward.

He said: ’The company contacted government specifically to see if there was any way the isolation requirement could be relaxed in this instance. Following several emails between January 19 and 29, the meeting was called for February 3.’

He said ahead of this meeting, on January 21, a newly drafted document had been sent to the Steam Packet and its potential usefulness discussed in the late January emails.

This document was entitled ’Isle of Man Resident Commercial Sea and Flight Crew - Returning Resident Entry Conditions for Non-Rota off Island Absences for Key Workers’ .

Mr Woodward said the document was considered specifically in respect of the upcoming dry-dock situation at the meeting on February 3.

He said Dr Ewart had been incorrect when she told a press briefing on February 18 that a statement that staff were not isolating wasn’t in line with the terms of this policy document.

’The policy document expressly excludes operational "on-rota" staff movements, stating these are "out of scope", and so is not at all relevant to staff undertaking normal shift patterns,’ he said.