AN IRISH academic has called on the State to help secure the return of his eight-year-old daughter, after his Hungarian ex-wife made unsubstantiated allegations of abuse against him and abducted her.
The lecturer and his daughter have not seen each other for almost a year, since his ex-wife refused to return with her from her home in northeast Hungary to France, where the divorced couple had been living separately.
French and Hungarian courts - including the supreme court in Budapest - have dismissed the abuse claims against the father and demanded that his daughter return with him to France.
However, his ex-wife has defied the court orders and the Hungarian authorities have failed to implement them.
The academic, who lives in Dublin and Paris, says his daughter has not attended school in Boconad for more than a month and is being "brainwashed" by her mother to believe that he abused her.
"The situation amounts to the psychological destruction of the child by her mother with the complicity of the local Hungarian authorities. I am very worried for her safety," he said.
"I call on the Irish State, the French state and the EU to demand the repatriation of my daughter to France. The French family court has awarded me sole custody of her and, under EU law, the verdict of a court in one member state is valid and enforceable in all others. Hungary is evading its responsibilities as an EU member," he said.
His fears for his daughter and frustration with the Hungarian authorities are compounded by what he sees as a lack of action by Irish diplomats, in a case that highlights the complexity and sensitivity of cross-border custody battles in the EU.
"My daughter was born in France but is an Irish citizen. The Irish Embassy in Budapest spoke to Hungarian officials and were assured the return order would be enforced. But nothing has happened."
The embassy referred questions to the Department of Foreign Affairs, where a spokesman said only that the man was receiving consular assistance.
"No one will take responsibility for getting the girl back," said her father's lawyer, Emese Volni.
"The social services wait for the bailiff to do something and the bailiff waits for the local court to do something. The police do nothing. But they could all act now if they wanted to. The supreme court has ruled in our favour."
Ilona Kraus, a lawyer for the girl's mother, said the case should be re-examined in light of findings by a Hungarian psychologist that she had been abused.
"The child hasn't been with her father for a long time. She hardly knows him now and says that she doesn't want to go with him," said Ms Kraus, who claimed the girl was now too scared to leave the house in Hungary.
"There is a court decision that the child should go back. But the court didn't listen to the child. She is very determined about what she wants and implementation of the court order should be suspended."
The academic - who has spent tens of thousands of euro on the legal battle for his child - was joined in Budapest this month by his sister, with whose family he and his daughter spent last Christmas.
Looking at family photographs of her niece, she recalled: "When she was leaving, she said 'Auntie, can we spend every Christmas with you for ever and ever?' I haven't seen her since that day."