That should be it from the Northern Ireland Assembly up here on Stormont hill in 2016... barring another emergency recall, which is highly unlikely, thankfully!

Join us again in 2017 for what should be an intriguing start to the new political year.

So, we'll bid you a goodnight from Parliament Buildings and wish you all a happy Christmas!

So, First Minister Arlene Foster has resisted what she calls her opponents' "fevered quest" to build her "political gallows" and is not standing down over the RHI scandal.

That's all from us today on Stormont Live, but you can catch the reaction to and analysis of today's events across the BBC.

Evening Extra is on air on BBC Radio Ulster now, and BBC Newsline will begin on BBC One Northern Ireland at 18:30.

As well as that, Mark Carruthers will bring you a special Stormont Today on BBC Two Northern Ireland at 23:00.

And if you prefer to get your political round-up on the wireless, Jayne McCormack will sum it all up on Today At The Assembly on BBC Radio Ulster at 22:02.

BBC News Northern Ireland

Somehow, one of our colleagues has managed to sum up that remarkable day in just 60 seconds.

Here's the gist of the happenings from today's heated assembly chamber.

Mark Devenport
BBC News NI Political Editor

Sinn Féin's motion in January on addressing the RHI scandal will include three key elements, Martin McGuinness says.

"First there needs to be a robust time-framed, transparent and independent investigation," he says.

"Secondly, we need proposals from the finance minister and the economy minister to reduce the losses to the public purse from this disastrous scheme.

"And thirdly, we believe while this is going on that the first minister should stand aside during this process."

Well, after the failure of the exclusion vote, Speaker Robin Newton adjourns today's sitting of the recalled assembly, and MLAs can return to their Christmas break.

That brings an extraordinary day at Stormont to an end, and there'll be no shortage of reaction to come.

Outside the chamber, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is calling on the other parties in the assembly to support a Sinn Féin motion in January calling on Arlene Foster to step aside.

"Today we have witnessed a shambles in the assembly - our institutions should not have to endure another day like this," he says.

The motion to exclude First Minister Arlene Foster is defeated on a cross-community vote.

Of the 75 members who voted, 39 approved the motion.

Breaking that down, 15 unionists and 12 nationalists backed it, as well as 12 other members.

But crucially, it needed cross-community support to pass and the DUP used its bulk in the chamber to ensure the call for Mrs Foster to step aside would not pass.

Interesting to note that outspoken DUP MLA Jonathan Bell didn't take part in the vote, and Justice Minister Claire Sugden, an independent MLA, voted against the motion with the DUP.

Three hours of hot and fiery debate (no pun intended, honestly) come to a close, and MLAs will now vote on the motion to exclude Arlene Foster from her office as first minister.

"The house will divide - ayes to my right, noes to my left," Speaker Robin Newton declares.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt wraps up the debate on the exclusion motion by saying that he has just returned from England, where "we are collectively a laughing stock".

The Strangford MLA says the first minister had claimed members would hear her plans for tackling the RHI crisis in her statement today.

"I read her speech and there is no plan," he says.

"Either her fingers were all over these policies or she was asleep at the wheel. Either way she has to stand aside."

The RHI scandal is an "extremely serious turn of events" for Northern Ireland's political institutions, DUP MLA Christopher Stalford says.

But he says the assembly is the "proper forum for holding ministers to account".

He describes the motion and the furore surround it as nothing more than an effort to "bring down the first minister".

"It was malice dressed up as fairness," the South Belfast MLA says, but he adds that there will be no "scalp".

Independent MLA Claire Sugden, Northern Ireland's justice minister, says the events of the past week have been "a farce".

"I would kick the house of cards down myself if Northern Ireland didn't have so much to lose," Ms Sugden says.

She will not be supporting the motion as she believes it is "premature", but she adds that she does support "a fair, independent investigation".

There "will not be a public inquiry" into the RHI scheme's failure, the DUP's Edwin Poots tells the assembly.

Instead, he says, there will be "an open and transparent inquiry", and a public inquiry is "not on the table" due to its potentially large cost.

Image source, bb

"What we have today is the actions of a lynch mob," the Lagan Valley MLA proclaims.

Things should be done "the British way" - that is, he says, that "people are innocent until found guilty".

Mr Allister goes on to hint at deeper motivations on the part of some DUP members.

"There are DUP members on these benches who could tell a lot about this scheme, who could tell about their party donors who have benefitted," he says.

He says there are also DUP members "whose friends and family benefitted from the scheme as well as the friends and family of [special advisers]".

TUV leader Jim Allister lays the blame for the RHI failure squarely at the feet of the first minister.

"Arlene Foster and Arlene Foster alone signed this scheme into existence," he says.

The North Antrim MLA rejects one of the defences posed by the DUP, saying that it was "not administrative oversight - minister asleep at the wheel".

Today's events in the chamber and a lack of action from Arlene Foster have "no doubt diminished the reputation of these institutions", Ulster Unionist Philip Smith says.

The 251,000 people who watched Stephen Nolan's BBC interviews with Jonathan Bell and Arlene Foster on the RHI scandal last Thursday night are a "testament to the theatre of good journalism", he adds.

Image source, bbc

The first minister's decision to "brazen it out is not a sign of strength but weakness", he says.

The Strangford MLA says the DUP may well win a "pyrrhic victory" today, but that will only "push the public toward the Trumpism of wanting to drain the swamp".

Members of the public "quite rightly are angry", Alastair Ross of the DUP says.

It is "quite remarkable", he says, to hear from former members of the Enterprise Committee and assembly members who voted for the scheme and who "now look back, being wise after the event, claiming that they knew it was wrong".

He describes the walkout by the other parties this morning as "pantomime politics at its very best".