Mr North – who was minister from 1996 to the end of 2001 – said in the evidence provided by the DTI, the last notes from the MEA quarterly liaison meetings that he said he would have seen was from November 18, 2001.

That note said: 'Ian Thompson (Treasury's former capital projects co-ordinator] confirmed that capital project reports being submitted by the MEA were satisfactory. Mike Proffitt (who was chief executive officer] undertook to provide additional financial information to IT which he considered would be useful.'

Mr North said that piece of evidence contained a 'very clear statement' from Mr Thompson.

'This was the situation as I understood it when I left the department,' he said.

>> DTI was 'led by the nose' by former MEA chief - claim

It appeared, he said, from evidence he had read, that the ongoing matter of financial regulations and capital project reports became 'urgent' in 2002 – by which time he had left the department.

He said: 'I feel sure that if, at any time over the period of your investigations, there was a breach of financial regulations by the MEA, or any government body, then that would be in the minutes of the Treasury.

'Reading the oral evidence, I was surprised by, apparently, the rapid breakdown in communications between the Treasury and the chief executive officer of the MEA (Mike Proffitt] which appeared to start in early 2002.'

He added that during his time at the DTI there was 'never any doubt in the department that financial regulations applied to the MEA'.

He later suggested from the previous evidence it appeared that the Treasury was more interested in objecting to a lack of capital project notes than it was in finding out what was going on.

Mr North admitted he had been advising the Council of Ministers that something must be done with regards to the building of the new power station by the winter of 2003.

However, he denied ever having used the expression 'the lights would go out' as it was not in his vocabulary.

There was 'pressure' to bring the project in on time he pointed out.

He also complained that little comment had been made about the 'outstanding achievement' by those involved 'in ensuring that the Isle of Man now has one of the most resilient power supplies anywhere in the world'.

Mr North was also critical of the 'personality clashes' of Mr Proffitt and chief secretary Mary Williams.

'They are both professionals and, in my opinion, should have been able to work together to complete an extremely difficult project,' he said.

'Their apparent lack of willingness to compromise, in my humble opinion, did the Isle of Man a great disservice.'

Although he said it was 'possibly unrelated', he suggested the committee ask Charles Fargher – a member of the former MEA board – about a meeting in early 2002 between then chief secretary Fred Kissack and Mr Proffitt in connection with the soon to be advertised post of chief secretary.

He added from the evidence so far 'the overriding question in my mind is what are the underlying motives for the actions taken by certain vested interests? I don't think we have anywhere near the truth yet'.

Asked to explain this statement, he said it concerned written submissions making reference to Manx Telecom and ManSat.