In the same week as Policing and Justice has been transferred from London to the devolved Stormont administration, the trial of Gerry McGeough has opened in Belfast. McGeough, a former senior official of Sinn Fein and member of its ard Comhairle; and the much feared Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade, is charged with PIRA membership in 1975, and the attempted murder of a UDR man in 1981, making him the first former member of the PIRA to be placed on trial in the North for historical crimes since the 1998 Good Friday agreement.