Does First Minister Michelle O'Neill believe there was an alternative to 'act of genocide' at Kingsmill - DUP's Buckley

The Upper Bann MLA also called on the Police Ombudsman to publish its report into the killings.

Ten Protestant workmen were shot dead when an IRA gang ambushed their minibus near Kingsmill, Co Armagh, on January 5 1976.

The killings were described by a coroner last week as an “overtly sectarian attack by the IRA”.

Mr Buckley said that both the British and Irish governments have “abjectly failed the victims of IRA violence”.

He said the coroner at the inquest had pointed towards “the silence of those that gave the Provisional IRA political cover. Namely Sinn Fein. Silence. No co-operation with the inquiry itself, the inquest”.

He questioned whether Sinn Fein’s actions matched their words. “Lets look at their actions. Whether it was the taunting of victims when a Sinn Fein MP place a loaf of Kingsmills bread on their head. Whether it was the naming of a children’s play park after the terrorist Raymond McCreesh who was named in the inquest as having fingerprints and hands on some of the very guns that were used not only in this atrocity but indeed others”.

Speaking about Sinn Fein, Jonathan Buckley said: “The truth lies within their ranks”.

“And I would encourage them now, even at this stage, to please cooperate, give Alan Black and the families the justice that they deserve, the truth that they’re calling out for.

“And as for the ‘First Minister for all’. Where is she today? Was there an alternative? Surely there was to what can only be described as an act of genocide?”

DUP deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said the atrocity was a “war crime”.

“Terrorism was always wrong and there was always an alternative,” she added.

Opening Monday’s debate, Jim Allister said the massacre was the “ultimate epitome of the IRA’s evil sectarian murder campaign”.

The TUV leader questioned Ms O’Neill’s “no alternative” comment.

“No alternative to taking 10 men off a bus and shooting them down like dogs because they were Protestant?” he said.