BOTH Republican and Loyalist parties in the north of Ireland have condemned plans by the British government to introduce a statute of limitations for Troubles-related offences.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis claimed “the best way to help Northern Ireland move further along the road to reconciliation” was to end all prosecutions related to the Troubles prior to 1998 for both British security forces and ex-paramilitaries.

North Belfast Sinn Fein MP John Finucane — whose father Patrick, a prominent human rights lawyer, was murdered at his home in 1989 by Loyalist paramilitaries in collusion with British forces — blasted the plans today.

“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from," he posted on social media. "The British [government] has decided that, if you are a victim, they will deny you any possibility of truth and any chance of justice.

"They do not care about your suffering. They care only about themselves."

Sinn Fein’s deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said on Wednesday night that the British government’s proposals would protect state forces from their “dirty role” in Ireland.

“The British government has set out its statement of intent, and it goes right to the highest echelons of government.

“Particularly given the fact that all the five political parties here are opposed to an amnesty, all the victims and survivor groups are opposed to amnesty, as is the Irish government.

“You have to ask the question, why is the British government intent in taking this route? I think it also has to be to protect those in suits who directed British state murder, murder of Irish citizens.”

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood accused Boris Johnson and Mr Lewis of acting in “bad faith.”

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the proposals were “perpetrator-focused rather than victim-focused” and would be “an insult to both the memory of those innocent victims who lost their lives during our Troubles and their families.”

Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry described the plans as an “assault on the rule of law and human rights,” and Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie said the British government was taking “the wrong path.”

Meanwhile, Declassified and former Morning Star journalist Phil Miller took the Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) to court today over its refusal to release a 48-year-old secret document that could reveal the relationships between Britain’s MI5, the police and terrorists involved in the 1974 Dublin bombings.

The document the PSNI refused to provide to Mr Miller was drawn up in 1973 by a serving MI5 officer called Jack Morton.

Mr Miller said: “The public has a right to know what advice Jack Morton, a colonial counterinsurgency expert, gave Northern Ireland's Special Branch 48 years ago.

"His advice came at a time when police were colluding with loyalist paramilitaries from the Glenanne Gang to the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, in terrorist attacks which killed dozens of innocent people."