We have kids with us who were sleeping in burnt-out cars, living on their own at the age of 5

If Aisling Foley had stuck to her career plans, she’d be working amid the depressing debris of the property collapse, trying to negotiate settlements between banks and the developers who owe them money.

Not surprisingly, any of her colleagues who initially thought her mad for giving up her job as partner in the commercial property department of leading law firm, Beauchamps, to go on the missions in Africa, have done a lot of rethinking.

“It is a nice time not to be in the business,” she says. “But even if the economic circumstances were different, I would still have wanted to go. I was only going for a year but after six months I knew I wasn’t coming back.”