HEARTACHE proved a lot more painful than backache for the Irish volunteers who toiled for seven days to ensure 1,500 South Africans’ lives have been changed forever.

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE property developer Seán Dunne denied the building industry is hypocritically supporting social housing projects abroad but ducking out of it responsibilities at home.

Seven hundred Irish men and women have returned home after two weeks building homes in one of South Africa's poorest areas.

Nobel Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu made a flying visit to Dublin today to back an housebuilding scheme which aims to transform lives in a township in South Africa.