Meteor sim locked - original owner in Vietnam - how to get PUK?

Hi,
a friend rang me looking for advice on this, and I think there'll be better answers here.
He's married to a girl from Vietnam, and when they had their first child, her mother
stayed in Ireland with them for a year. She signed up to Meteor.
When she went back home, her daughter continued using the number,
and had it switched from billpay to pay as you go.
BUT, somewhere down the line, it's still in her mother's name.

Now that child is old enough to turn on a phone and type in the wrong PIN a few times...
The card with the PUK on it is long gone, and Meteor have insisted that the original customer
come in to a shop personally before they'll authorise giving out the PUK.
As the records show that this is the mother rather than the daughter, they've a big problem.
Changing the number itself would be inconvenient, but that's all.

Unfortunately, there are numbers on the SIM that they can't get back,
and that's the main priority right now.

Anyone with a Meteor connection here who might have a suggestion?
Getting the numbers off the original SIM as far as I know requires
it to be unlocked, but maybe there's some suggestions on that too.