11 December 2011 Last updated at 05:38 ET

Isle of Man chief minister denies 'consumer crisis'

Allan Bell said the consumer crisis claims had been exaggerated

The Isle of Man's chief minister has denied the island has been suffering a "consumer crisis".

Allan Bell hit back at comments made by Bill Henderson MHK to the BBC earlier in the week.

Mr Henderson said the cancellation of ferries - due to poor weather and technical problems - had affected food and medical supplies.

But Mr Bell said the shortage of supplies had been exaggerated.

"We need to be careful about the language we use at times like this," he said.

"Clearly there are difficulties and the Steam Packet are struggling with a very unusual spell of bad weather.

"They obviously have mechanical problems with the boat as well which hasn't helped but if the mechanical problems hadn't been there, for most of those cancellations they would have been cancelled anyway because of the bad weather. The boat couldn't have coped with it."