Just under 80 scheduled bus services had to be cancelled last month due to staff illness at Bus Vannin.

This adds up to less than 0.8% of its bus services overall.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall told the House of Keys this week that Bus Vannin, ‘like other businesses’, had suffered higher staff shortage levels than usual in recent months.

He added: ‘Cancellations were due to staff shortages and no bus services were cancelled due to any other operational constraints.

‘I can also confirm that no school services were affected.’

This was in response to a question posed by Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse who wanted to know how many scheduled bus services were cancelled in April 2022 because of staff shortages and operational constraints.

Mr Crookall said 77 scheduled bus services were cancelled but all 421 school journeys remained unaffected.

Mr Moorhouse mentioned the trust the public have for Bus Vannin and asked, with so many cancellations at short notice, whether this was being questioned.

The minister apologised for the cancellations and said the Department of Infrastructure would be assessing the need for all bus services across the island during its ‘all island review’.

‘If we’ve got too many services on, we’ll look at that,’ he added. ‘Bus Vannin is a good service, we’re told regularly by visitors we have a very good service.’

Speaker of the House of Keys Juan Watterson also expressed concern about staff shortages being sorted as soon as possible with the impending flood of visitors at TT.

When Mr Moorhouse asked if alternatives had been considered in regards to pay, Mr Crookall said he was ‘not aware of any issues’, adding: ‘I’m sure the unions would let me know if there were different pay conditions.’