Chief Minister Howard Quayle has insisted the government will cope with applications from EU nationals registering for settled status.

There are more than 4,000 EU nationals living here and the EU settlement scheme will launch on March 30. There will be no fee for the application and Mr Quayle has repeatedly stressed that everyone would be welcome to continue living here after Brexit.

Application forms would be available to download and also from the immigration office, with the completed responses to be posted back or returned in person.

’We are not going to have 4,000 applications in the first few days,’ Mr Quayle told the House of Keys.

’I have been assured that immigration officers have trained additional resource to provide support to process the anticipated influx of applications and are confident that they can manage the process.’

But Lawrie Hooper (LibVannin, Ramsey) asked why there were no plans for a specific app or why the form could not be completed online, ’given this EU scheme is going to impact over 4,000 of our residents, and the Isle of Man’s previous commitment to making this scheme streamlined, quick, easy and user friendly’.

Applications in Jersey and the UK could be completed online, he said.

Mr Quayle said Jersey had 24,000 EU nationals and the UK 3.8 million.

’In a perfect world, yes, a state-of-the-art digital system would be perfect, but we have only got 4,184 to deal with,’ he said.

’If we can bring in a system in the future then we will, but we have a system that works.’