A unionist motion to block the display of Easter lilies in Stormont has failed, despite majority backing in the Assembly.
The DUP had tabled an emergency motion instructing the cross-party Assembly Commission to reverse its decision to display the flowers in the Great Hall of Stormont. The Commission, which administers Stormont for the Assembly, decided last week to allow the display.
The decision was opposed by DUP and UUP members of the Commission and was only reached when the Alliance member voted in favour.
Opening a debate on the motion, Mr Jim Wells of the DUP said the display was being done to honour the memory of 300 IRA volunteers killed in action.
"For the first time ever in the history of the United Kingdom, a government building will be used to display symbols which honour IRA terrorists," he said.
Mr David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party said he supported the display and recognised "the significance the lily had for the relatives and dependants of dead republicans".
However, Mr Ervine, whose party is allied to the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, added: "I as a unionist have no desire to venerate or appreciate the republican dead other than I or my colleagues may have liked to have added to the ranks of the dead.
"As members of the Democratic Unionist Party slid about the Armagh desert with rolled-up DUP manifestos determined to destroy the republican movement, there were those of us who tried to do exactly that.
"I am sorry to say not with as much success as I would like to report," added Mr Ervine, who was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment in the mid-1970s for transporting a bomb.
After the debate the East Belfast MLA said he had not been advocating that anyone repeat his activities and that trying to block the lilies would only heighten sectarian tensions.
"Times move on and we have got to move on," he said.
Dr Dara O'Hagan of Sinn Fein insisted the Easter lily was a cherished symbol for republicans and nationalists and those who had died fighting for Irish freedom and called for equality for her views.
She said: "I don't expect any unionists to agree with that, but what I do expect is that they allow me to choose the symbol that I want to represent me. Do not tell me which symbol should represent me."
The DUP motion was supported by 48 to 38 votes: however, the SDLP had tabled a "petition of concern" which meant the motion needed crosscommunity support. No member of Sinn Fein or the SDLP supported the motion and it fell.