Last week’s BBC Spotlight brought to the fore the shocking Renewable Heat Incentive scandal overseen by Arlene Foster’s former Executive department. As you’ve probably heard by now, the blunder is projected to cost the taxpayer £400 million.

Speaking on the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal for the first time on Monday Mrs Foster would almost have you believe that her department had done little more than dropped a tenner in the street. The saga rounds off what has been a disastrous year for the DUP following both NAMA allegations and revelations about the mismanagement of the Social Investment Fund.

The Nolan Show revealed this morning that – against the advice of senior civil servants – Arlene Foster kept the scheme open. On top of that, out of twelve audits that took place, eleven found the scheme to be non-compliant. This is the same Mrs Foster who insisted during the DUP’s ‘in-out’ ministerial escapade that she needed to stay on as ‘gatekeeper’ for the purse strings to protect public money against the ‘rogues and renegades’.

One could only hope that the RHI scandal would bring about real accountability for the electorate, but in truth it is likely the DUP may escape unscathed, once again.

But why?

Fear. From the days of Carson and Craig, Unionist leadership enforced the idea that a Unionist majority was the only end goal. Eighteen years into the Peace Process Arlene Foster is no different; you only need to recall the election antics of ‘keep Arlene First Minister’.

Both the Red Sky and NAMA scandals still didn’t stop the party returning 38 MLAs to the benches of Stormont to remain the biggest party in government. Their sheer size allows them to be the only party to use the petition of concern to vote down any legislation they see fit. This mechanism gives them disproportionate power in the Assembly regardless of their power-sharing agreement with Sinn Fein.

The opposition has called for Mrs. Foster to sit in front of the Public Accounts Committee, as well as calling for an investigation into whether or not any ministerial code has been broken through the lucrative RHI scheme. The SDLP has called for Sinn Féin to back a vote of no confidence in the First Minister. Sinn Féin, however, has stayed deathly silent on the issue; a cynic might suspect this to be strategic as any calls from a nationalist party to remove a democratically elected Unionist leader in Northern Ireland would be like waving a red rag to a bull. In staying silent they have kept the focus on the issue, allowing it to not be diluted down to tribal lines.

However, the only portion of society that can really hold the DUP accountable for this in the long run is the Unionist electorate, of which 202,567 of them give the DUP their first preference vote back in May. It is hard to predict whether or not DUP voters will be prepared to punish the party by gambling a Unionist lead for the sake of integrity and transparency come the 2019 council elections and then again in 2021.

If they do, it is unlikely they will break green and orange lines. If the Ulster Unionist Party had any sense at all they should begin to position themselves behind the outcry, both early and intelligently if they are to reap the benefits of this colossal blunder to provide a realistic alternative to the Unionist electorate.