North Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson wants the the Irish Government to apologize for its part in the emergence of the IRA in the 1970s.

According to the Irish Examiner, the Democratic Unionist leader said: “There is a clear connection between what the IRA did in its infancy and the Government of the Irish Republic.

He said: “I think the Irish Republic would do well to look at its role and recognise that it was not the way it should have behaved in those days, and apologise for it because massive death and destruction followed.”

Robinson made his call on the BBC after relatives of an infamous IRA attack in South Armagh asked Taoiseach Enda Kenny to apologize for not doing more to solve the crime.

On Monday, the DUP is expected to put forward a motion in the North’s regional administration asking for an apology from the Irish Government.

Enda Kenny, who on Thursday met with relatives of 10 Protestant textile workers killed in 1976 near the village of Kingsmills, said that the IRA were the common enemy of all of the people of Ireland.