BELFAST — On Monday, lawmakers in Northern Ireland were supposed to discuss a draft budget. Instead, there were farcical scenes including two walkouts by opposition MPs and the Northern Irish first minister, Arlene Foster, losing a “no confidence” vote but surviving anyway.

Northern Ireland is no stranger to Christmas political crises. In recent years, Belfast’s delicate political institutions have been threatened by a succession of year-end emergencies. But unlike the ghosts of Christmas past, this year’s difficulties have nothing to do with flags, parades or the legacy of the 30-year-long Troubles that cost more than 3,000 lives. At root are questions of competency and potential conflicts of interest that go to the heart of the challenges of government in post-conflict Northern Ireland.

Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, stands accused of presiding over a botched public heating project that could cost cash-strapped Northern Ireland as much as £400 million.

As enterprise minister in 2012, Foster approved the creation of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme. The idea was simple: encourage Northern Irish businesses to move away from fossil fuels. The incentives were generous: For every £1 spent on renewable fuel — typically wood pellets — the government would pay £1.60 in return.

Disastrously, payouts were not capped.

The scheme was finally halted early this year, by which time its overall cost had reached £1.18 billion. In one example cited in a report from the Northern Ireland audit office, a business taking part in the same scheme in Britain could collect about £192,000 over two decades by using a boiler all year round, but a Northern Irish firm doing the same could earn £860,000.

In a TV interview earlier this month, the DUP's Jonathan Bell, who replaced Foster as enterprise minister, said party advisors attempted to delay the scheme’s closure and made attempts to remove references to Foster from the records on the project.

Bell has since been suspended by the DUP, which has denied all his claims. But the fire lit by the renewables scheme could do serious damage to Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.

Breach of protocol

Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, Foster and her opposite number, Sinn Féin's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, are effectively joint leaders of the executive. But on Monday, Foster issued a statement without McGuinness’ approval, prompting a mass walkout of all lawmakers but the DUP contingent.

After Foster addressed only her DUP colleagues, a confidence vote was held on her leadership. She lost by 39 votes to 36, with Sinn Féin abstaining. The vote was purely symbolic: the motion did not have the necessary levels of support from either unionist or nationalist lawmakers required by the assembly's power-sharing rules.

"They can't gang up and kick out the elected leaders of unionism" — Arlene Foster

Foster — who assumed the DUP leadership uncontested earlier this year and led the party to victory in May’s Northern Irish elections — cut a belligerent figure. While she apologized for the failures of the renewable heating scheme, she dismissed the no-confidence motion as “nothing short of an attempt at a constitutional coup d’état.”

"They can't gang up and kick out the elected leaders of unionism," said Foster, who left the Ulster Unionist Party for the DUP in 2003 largely because of the latter’s vehement opposition to power-sharing with Irish republicans.

Colum Eastwood, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), said the RHI scandal had uncovered "staggering incompetence" and that digging deeper "may uncover corruption." The no-confidence motion was backed by the SDLP, Ulster Unionists, the cross-community Alliance party and a number of smaller parties.

On Monday evening, Sinn Féin announced that it would bring forward a motion in January “which deals comprehensively with the substantive issues surrounding this debacle.”

The republicans will call for an independent investigation into the renewables scheme, proposals to reduce the financial losses, and for Foster to step aside.

If the DUP leader decides to remain in office, elections would be a “distinct possibility,” warned Sinn Féin minister Conor Murphy.

However, a restructuring of the Northern Irish assembly complicates matters further. The number of parliamentarians is being reduced from 108 to 90 as the assembly is deemed too big, which could lead to the collapse of the power-sharing agreement, said professor Jon Tonge from Liverpool University.

“Sinn Féin could collapse the executive by walking out. If they felt the DUP would lose so many seats at a snap election that McGuinness would become first minister via Sinn Fein achieving largest party status, it could be game on. However, it's risky as ... their own vote is more flaky than was once the case, McGuinness has health issues and Sinn Féin's own ministries wouldn't want too much spotlight.”

Out with the tribal fights

For decades, politics in Northern Ireland has revolved almost entirely around constitutional issues — Nationalism and unionism, green and orange. But since devolution from London almost a decade ago, the assembly at Stormont Castle has been dogged by a succession of distinctly non-tribal scandals, many involving the most outwardly puritanical party in U.K. politics, the DUP.

In 2010, Foster’s predecessor Peter Robinson was forced to stand aside after a BBC documentary revealed that his wife had procured £50,000 in loans to finance a restaurant for her teenage lover. She failed to declare her interest in the business despite sitting on the council that granted its operating license.

Robinson survived, going on to serve almost eight years as Northern Irish first minister, but questions over political propriety have remained. Having often criticized the financial dealings of politicians in Dublin, Northern Ireland's unionists now find themselves in the spotlight.

Foster, the current first minister, has also been heavily criticized for inaction over Brexit.

“It was almost a thing that we prided ourselves on, when we looked down at grubby [Irish political party] Fianna Fáil and [former Irish PM] Charles Haughey. We northern Presbyterians wouldn’t be involved in this type of thing. But actually it looks like we are,” said John McCallister, former deputy leader of the Ulster Unionists.

Earlier this year, the National Assets Management Agency — the “bad bank” created by the Irish government in Dublin in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis — reported its former Northern Ireland advisor, Frank Cushnahan, to police over corruption allegations related to a €1.6 billion land sale to Cerebus, a U.S. company that has former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle as one of its bosses. Cushnahan had been appointed on the recommendation of the DUP.

It also emerged that Northern Irish assembly speaker Robin Newton was an advisor to Charter NI, a community organization with links to the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. Charter NI received £1.7 million in government funding this year.

Foster, the current first minister, has also been heavily criticized for inaction over Brexit. She campaigned to leave the European Union — although unlike her counterpart in London, David Cameron, there was no suggestion of her standing down when a majority of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU.

Since then, she has rejected calls for an all-Ireland forum on Brexit and has struggled for relevance in the debate despite fears of the damage that a “hard border” could do to the fragile Northern Irish economy.

Johnny Byrne, lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster, said in the past scandals like the renewable heating scheme would have been dealt with “behind closed doors.”

“In other parts of the democratic world the media have been able to flush out issues like this and this is only starting to happen here. Our politics is still based around orange and green tribalism. You are confined within the boundaries of your ethnic religious background. But this hasn’t been about flags, violence, street protests, this has been about political ineptitude and financial irregularities.”