Enterprise Minister Laurence Skelly says he won’t resign over the Vision Nine affair.

And Mr Skelly says he is ’saddened and disappointed’ by the ’personal attack’ made against him in Tynwald this week by the MLC who headed the scrutiny committee investigation into the collapse of the Vision Nine project.

The 862-page report concludes that responsibility for the failure of the Vision Nine project lay primarily with Mr Skelly and his then chief executive Chris Corlett.

In Tynwald, Michael Coleman MLC said it wasn’t for the committee to say whether Laurence Skelly should continue as Minister.

But he cited as an example of personal integrity the captain of the Titanic who had blamed no one but himself after the ship hit the iceberg and had stayed in the wheelhouse as it sank.

He contrasted that with the captain of the Costa Concordia who was quick to abandon ship when the Italian cruise liner ran aground.

Mr Coleman said the Minister’s grip of ’such a flagship project was so light’ it failed to leave a fingerprint as it ’trundled towards catastrophe like a steam train with no brakes’.

He said the island ’had dodged a bullet’. ’We spent five years working on this and £350,000 on consultancy fees and what did we end up with? Nothing.’

But Mr Skelly told the Manx Independent he would not resign and claimed there was a ’level of bias’ in the report. He said: ’The report points to the fact that there was a systemic failure of government process. I followed policy and I followed process.

’Several members have pointed out that there was a level of bias in the report.

’A number of people could have and should have been interviewed but were not - not least the Sports Consultancy who were both our project advisers and legal advisers for the best part of eight years.

’I’m saddened and disappointed Mr Coleman chose to make it a personal attack.’

The committee chairman’s comments prompted Home Affairs Minister Bill Malarkey to remark: ’This is a witch hunt not a report.’

’If I was going to do a witch hunt I know who it would be and it would not be Mr Skelly,’ replied Mr Coleman.

A 10-year deal to appoint Vision Nine as private promoter partner for the TT was approved by Tynwald in April 2016.

Just seven months later, the Council of Ministers pulled the plug following legal advice of the acting Attorney General. That advice remains confidential. The contract with Vision Nine was never signed.

A draft report was only circulated to the other departments at the end of April 2016. Their concerns had not been addressed as there was no time to do so, the report finds.