A SDLP vote of no confidence in First Minister Arlene Foster has been defeated in the Assembly.
The motion was put forward by SDLP and Foyle MLA Colum Eastwood but failed to get cross community support in the chamber.
Sinn Fein didn’t vote on the motion and only 39 voted in favour.
In moving his motion, Mr Eastwood told the Assembly: “The SDLP brings this motion before the House in the full awareness of just how serious a moment this is for our local politics.
“As we attempt to claw back the £400 million and more which may be lost to our local taxpayers, let us also act to claw back the fading threads of confidence in these institutions.
“As we draw towards the end of 2016 let us today act to redeem and restore some faith that public service, for the common and the collective good, remains worth fighting for.
“In that context, the SDLP welcomes the cross-party support this motion has received.
“There is a reason for that unity and the DUP members of this House would do well to take heed of it.
“Since entering into public life, as a councillor and as an MLA, never have I seen our public more engaged and more angry about a single issue.
“I would hazard a guess that as each of us walked the streets of our constituencies this weekend, MLAs from right across this chamber were hearing that same disgust.”
Stormont’s political institutions are under threat of a meltdown in a row over a botched heating scheme.
Members of the assembly walked out of the chamber twice on Monday morning.
However, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said Sinn Féin – partners in government with the DUP – would not be pulling the plug on Stormont.
In an interview with the BBC, he said: “We are dealing with a shambles and there is an urgent need to restore credibility in the institutions.
“It’s very, very important that the executive office finds a way forward through the quite clear difficulties,” he said.
He said his party will put forward a motion in the assembly calling for an investigation into the “debacle” and urge the first minister to step aside during an investigation into the scheme.
Earlier, Mrs Foster said she would resist her opponents’ “fevered quest” to build her “political gallows”.
She exclaimed “trial by television” as she faced a no-confidence vote over the botched heating scheme that could cost taxpayers £400m.
But flaws in setting the scheme’s subsidy rate left it open to abuse as claimants could earn more cash the more fuel they burned.
The scheme was finally halted early this year, by which time its overall cost had reached £1.18bn.
About £20m a year for the next two decades could be taken from the Northern Ireland budget to cover the overspend.
“They can’t gang up and kick out the elected leader of unionism,” Mrs Foster told the Northern Ireland Assembly.
“I am here and I will be staying here,” she said. “I have acted with the highest level of integrity.”
She also treated her political opponents in the SDLP, Ulster Unionists, Alliance and TUV, to a razor-sharp tongue lashing. The gloves were off.
She said she was “glad” that Colum Eastwood, SDLP, and Mike Nesbitt, UUP, “aren’t very good” at opposition.
The Alliance Party had, in the past, acted in a more “considered and responsible way”, she said, “but that was under a different leader”.
“No doubt, at some point, we will hear today this decision is related to the flags protest,” she said.
Mrs Foster said the motion to bring her down was “doomed” and that this was a “coup d’état more worthy of a Carry On Film”.
Earlier, a series of stormy arguments and walk-outs threatened to lurch Northern Ireland into a fresh constitutional crisis.
The row that erupted in the assembly on Monday was over Mrs Foster’s decision to “fly solo” .
She prepared to make a ministerial statement without the support of the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin, with whom she shares the joint office.
The other parties walked out of the chamber and stormed to the press microphones to voice their anger.
Mr McGuinness made it clear that Mrs Foster did not speak for him or with him. He said she would be acting without his approval or authority.
Earlier, he had warned that a DUP-established inquiry into the so-called “cash for ash” affair would have no credibility.
He also said that there would be grave consequences if the DUP took a unilateral approach and Mrs Foster made a ministerial statement without his support.
Speaker Robin Newton, DUP, found himself at the eye of the storm, facing a barrage from politicians over the right of Mrs Foster to make the statement without the support of her deputy first minister.
But he went ahead and called on Mrs Foster to speak.
She ended up preaching to the converted as nearly all of the MLAs from the other parties left the chamber again..
The DUP accused the other parties of “running away” when they left the chamber and Mrs Foster asked: “Where are they? The people of Northern Ireland deserve better than this.”
The other parties rolled their eyes.
Eamonn McCann, People Before Profit, said there was “no shortage of clowns but no ring master” at Stormont.
“We are now in La La land and limbo land,” said the Foyle MLA.
TUV leader Jim Allister said: “I know it’s pantomime season but what has happened today is beyond farce.”
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