AN IRISH academic has written to the Taoiseach to demand help in finding his young daughter after her mother defied international court orders and went on the run with her in Hungary.
The lecturer has not seen Fiona (9) since Christmas 2007 when her mother, from whom he is divorced, refused to return from her family home in the Hungarian village of Boconad.
The couple lived separately at that time in Paris, where he teaches at a business school.
The mother has accused him of sexually abusing Fiona, but French and Hungarian courts have repeatedly thrown out her claims and demanded that he be given sole custody of their daughter.
In July he went to Boconad to enforce the court orders with police and Irish and French diplomats, only to find that his ex-wife had fled the village with Fiona after being released from a short stay in police custody. Their current whereabouts are not known.
France has issued an international arrest warrant for the mother, but her ex-husband rejects assurances from the Hungarian police that they are doing their utmost to find her and Fiona.
He has now asked Brian Cowen, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin to hold Hungary to its commitments under EU law and the 1980 Hague Convention on Child Abduction.
“Since Hungary has inexcusably failed to comply with its treaty obligations, I hereby demand that the Republic of Ireland initiate infringement proceedings against the Republic of Hungary before the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights,” Fiona’s father writes in a letter that has been seen by The Irish Times.
He argues that, if Mr Cowen and his colleagues genuinely support the Lisbon Treaty, it is their duty to ensure that EU laws are enforced.
“A failure to act in the defence of an endangered Irish child, while at the same time asking the citizens of Ireland to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which is designed to strengthen the institutions and laws of the European Union, would amount to nothing less than utter hypocrisy,” he writes.
The lecturer has borrowed heavily from relatives during an international legal battle that has cost more than €50,000. He has taken a sabbatical from his teaching post, doing odd jobs in Budapest to pay for board and lodging. He has vowed to remain in Hungary until Fiona is found and returned to him. He has sought financial help from the likes of Michael Flatley – Fiona was taught by one of his dance partners, Sarah Clark – and from Michael O’Leary, because Fiona often flew on Ryanair.
He has also created a Facebook page called Bring Fiona Home to increase awareness and raise funds.