SINN Féin's Mary Lou McDonald has insisted "no apology" was made by Boris Johnson to the Ballymurphy families during a virtual meeting with the first and deputy first ministers on Wednesday.
Downing Street said the prime minister apologised over the deaths during a remote meeting with Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill.
Neither party referred to the apparent apology from Mr Johnson after the meeting which was set up to discuss covid.
Ms McDonald, who yesterday met with relatives of those killed in the massacre, said the 10-minute meeting had focused on the Covid response.
"There was no apology made, and I think everybody knows that you don't make an apology by proxy," she said.
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"A second-hand apology really doesn't amount to any apology at all."
A coroner earlier this week found that British soldiers shot nine out of the 10, while the circumstances of the tenth death could not be determined.
Mrs Justice Keegan said all 10 were "entirely innocent" and the use of lethal force by the Army was not justified.
Mr Johnson yesterday sent a personal letter to the solicitor of the families of those killed, minutes before Secretary of State Brandon Lewis made a public apology in the House of Commons.
But speaking to the media after walking along the Whiterock Road with the families of John Laverty and Joseph Corr to the spot where they were shot, Ms McDonald urged Mr Johnson to engage directly with the families.
"After half a century of denial and lies frankly, after half a century of struggle by these families to get to the truth, to have the truth pronounced loudly for the world, I believe the respectful thing is not to write them a letter through their solicitor or to offer them up a half-baked second-hand apology," she said.
"I believe the dignified thing is to recognise these families, meet with these families and to provide a fulsome public apology that recognises the full calamity that was visited on their family, the full human loss and also the fact of the murderous behaviour of British troops in Ballymurphy and elsewhere in Ireland all those years ago."
Read more:
- Boris Johnson told to 'come out of hiding' and meet Ballymurphy families
- Analysis: Justice denied teaches patience is a powerful thing
