He said families in the future will be able to find answers with “less distress and delay”.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has apologised to the families of victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre in the House of Commons.
The apology comes after a coroner’s report last week found all 10 Ballymurphy victims “entirely innocent”.
Johnson was reported to have made an apology during a call with Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill last week, in which he called the conclusions of the Ballymurphy Inquest “deeply sad” and said the events of August 1971 were “tragic”.
He also sent an apology letter to the families of the victims, in which he stated he was “truly sorry” for the “terrible hurt” caused by the killings.
However, some family members of the victims, as well as Sinn Féin, criticised the apologies and called for an apology to be delivered in parliament.
Speaking on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said: “Last week, an inquest found Francis Quinn, Father Hugh Mullan, Noel Phillips, Joan Connolly, Daniel Teggart, Joseph Murphy, Edward Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr and John McKerr, who were killed in Ballymurphy in August 1971, entirely innocent.
“On behalf of the successive governments and to put on the record in this house, I would like to say sorry to their families for how the investigations were handled and for the pain they’ve endured since their campaign began almost five decades ago.
“No apology, Mr. Speaker, can lessen their lasting pain. I hope they may take some comfort in the answers they have secured and in knowing that this has renewed the government’s determination to ensure, in future, that other families can find answers with less distress and delay.”
The 10 people shot dead in Ballymurphy in West Belfast in 1971 were all found to be “entirely innocent of any wrongdoing on the day in question” by a coroner.
Delivering her findings in Belfast after the longest-running inquest in Northern Ireland’s history, Justice Siobhán Keegan said she hoped the findings would bring peace to the families of the victims.
She found that nine out of 10 were shot by the British army, and in the majority of cases, the force used was “disproportionate”.
You can watch Johnson’s apology below.
“I would like to say sorry to their families for how the investigations were handled and for the pain they’ve endured…”
In the House of Commons earlier, Boris Johnson apologised to the families of the 10 innocent victims of the Ballymurphy massacre in August 1971. pic.twitter.com/Z4HgFk2ZlF
— JOE.ie (@JOEdotie) May 19, 2021
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