A STORMONT-backed social enterprise being linked to the selling of loyalist paramilitary flags also received funding from Invest NI.
Laganside Business Services (LBS) received a £2,000 grant from the public body in 2014.
The Irish News this week reported how the Lisburn Flag Shop, a pop-up business which sold UDA, UFF and Red Hand Commando flags through its Facebook page, asked customers to pay using an email address for LBS.
LBS was among several social enterprises supported through a Stormont pilot scheme worth more than £400,000.
The money was awarded to the Resurgam Trust to fund posts aimed at creating and supporting several new social enterprises.
The pilot scheme was launched in 2012 by the DUP's Nelson McCausland when he was social development minister.
The Resurgam Trust denied that LBS is involved in selling flags, saying that any connection is "purely a historical link" to an old name and former operations for the social enterprise.
According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, LBS received a 'social enterprise employment grant' from Invest NI worth £2,000 to support the creation of one job.
Invest NI said this was paid to LBS in June 2014 and was unconnected to the Stormont pilot scheme funding.
The economic development agency was asked yesterday about the LBS being linked to the selling of paramilitary flags.
"There is no other ongoing support and we have no further comment to make," an Invest NI spokeswoman said.
Resurgam in 2012 also received £4,000 from Invest NI for a domicilliary care project, according to the FOI response.
After The Irish News posed questions to Resurgam last week, the Lisburn Flag Shop page disappeared from Facebook.
The business, which operates annually in the run-up to the Twelfth, had described itself as promoting "Protestant, unionist, loyalist history and culture through the sale of flags and memorabilia".
It was based at Smithfield Square on the floor above a depot for Premier Taxi Company – another of the social enterprises that received support through the Stormont pilot scheme.
Resurgam, a community development organisation and registered charity, has continued to receive Stormont funding for its social enterprise work since the pilot scheme ended.
This has amounted to £461,615 between 2012-13 and 2017-18.
The Department for Communities said LBS is not directly in receipt of funding, but it has "sought formal assurance" that LBS has no association with the Lisburn Flag Shop and this will be "kept under review".
The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland is also to examine the matter "before deciding any next steps which may be required".
Vince Curry of Resurgam has insisted LBS "does not sell any flags let alone paramilitary ones" and has "no connection" to the Lisburn Flag Shop.
