“Significant failures” have been found in the investigation into murders and attempted murders by the Ulster Defense Association (UDA).

Mr Coveney said it is “regrettable that the comprehensive and balanced framework we have agreed to together has not yet been put in place”.

“Last year, as we know, the UK government issued a policy document which represented a radical departure from the Stormont House agreement and proposed a statute of limitations which would end criminal investigations and prosecutions for offenses related to The Troubles prior to 1998. as well as ending investigations and civil litigation,” Mr. Coveney said. “This is essentially a proposal for an unconditional amnesty for those not yet convicted.”

It was very clear throughout this process that the British proposal for a statute of limitations does not have the support of victims. They lack the support of parties in Northern Ireland, which have been strong and united in their opposition.

“They have caused serious concern to international human rights bodies. They are without international precedent. We cannot accept these proposals as a basis for moving forward,” he said.

Sinn Féin chairwoman Mary Lou McDonald said the report shows “the footprints of collusion that run through Britain’s dirty war in Ireland and trace a shameful train of state murder, directed and co-ordinated at the highest levels of the British system. in alliance with loyalist death squads, targeting the nationalist community”.

The collusion was not an illusion. This was the lived reality of the nationalist community and for many collusion was the route to their murder at the hands of the British state.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello noted that the state had been criticized by those who had lost loved ones when a cross-border element was present and said the government should set up a historical investigations unit to s tackle the problem.