So to start
You wake up in Dublin – your home town born and bred.

So what’s the problem? You have no cash nowhere to live and no form of identification

Square one
160 Capel Street DCC homeless persons unit.
Tucked away under an archway between the pornshop and Nirvana’s ruins.

You need an ML10.
This is a temporary form of photo id. Without this nothing is possible.

Required
Two passport photos Cost: €4-8
Try begging with the byline I don’t do drugs, don’t drink, need money to buy passport photos

So you get your photos 2 for €3.50 chemist top of O’Connell st and off to Store street Garda station for your form (Pearse street had none)

Up to the counter

“How may I help you sir?”
Two palms face down on the countertop
Leaning shoulders and massive Garda* head towards me

“I need an ML10” and produce my pictures and place them on the countertop between us.

Their effect was immediate and dramatic.
Hands off counter one step back slight turn to the side now presenting only profile as if trying to deny a would be sniper a viable target, it’s really slimming – must be why you don’t see fat women in Gaza

“A what sir?” “An ML10” An ML10 is a proof of ID form with attached signed photo
(Back of photo is signed and dated as is the ML10 form together they act as a valid from of ID as sworn to by a Garda)

“Yes” It’s coming back to him.
“Yes they are here somewhere” head scratch turn bend frown.
Garda calisthenics have seen similar displays in various Garda stations around the country “Ah here we go” back up to the counter and more relaxed. An ML10 as it turns out is not a terror cell and I am not the third identical triplet of two of it’s captured cell members here pictured

ML10 on counter the Garda adopts a reading posture – elbows on counter one arm folded one supporting chin and reads at his own pace

A swift upright official posture deftly turns the ML10 through 180˚ to face me done with such dexterity he must have practiced it in his spare time for the day he had his Sipowitz moment. The moment he got to crack the case now sign scumbag and I hope you they give you the chair.

“I’ll need you to sign here. That’s fine” a hand outstretches for my photos. Checks both likeness, nods his head.

All going well

Takes both form and photos in hand and asks the question “What proof of ID do you have?”

Now it states quite clearly on the front of the ML10 that I have no passport or drivers licence – need I say more?

“Well without proof of ID I can’t sign these”
Back to defence posture form and photos on counter

I’ll let you in on a secret – when you’ve stood in front of a measuring tape in the back of a Garda station with a lad pointing a camera at you – no matter how circumstantial the case is, it’s hard to say to yourself one day this cloud will have a silver lining instead of 3-5 years .

Well lo and behold the silver lining
“You have my picture.”
Frown – points to countertop. “No – on file – you have my picture”

“Name, date of birth, last address?”
Two minutes later Garda returns from computer terminal

Now we are old friends no need for formality. On establishing I am a crim all is good. This scenario pleases his Garda brain fits his parameters. Crims are his bread and butter he can understand them.

He looks out from behind his counter to the street beyond and thinks they’re all fucking crims they should all be tagged. Make my job easier, what?!

One pic two pic form signed stamped. “There you go anything else?”

“Just one thing, what would the outcome have been if you had no record of me?”

“Quite simply – You’d be fucked mate.”

Editor: Gard = Irish word for Cop