Delayed Isle of Man pension benefits to be paid on Christmas Eve

Double payments had been due to be made last Friday

Early pension payments to 1,715 people on the Isle of Man that were due to be made available last week will not be paid until Christmas Eve, the government has said.

Many had expected to be able to collect double payments on Friday due to the Christmas holidays.

Those using the MiCard system will now not be able to collect the cash until the morning of 24 December.

The government said "technical issues" had led to the non-payment.

Most post offices close at 12:00 GMT on Christmas Eve.

Apologising for the delay, a government spokesman said it was the first time payments using the MiCard system had been scheduled to be brought forward by a week.

The hold-up which has only impacted users of that system, which allows benefits to be collected in cash at post offices around the island.