Marita Hanlon (36) is a certified accountant who returned with her family to live in Ireland. She's working with a religious organisation in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, that looks after intellectually disabled people.

She comes from this part of the country and left in 1988 to work in London, where she worked for various companies, including eight years with Aer Lingus.

Last year, herself and her husband, Brendan O'Mara, who's from Edenderry, Co Offaly, decided to return home to Ireland because they wanted their two pre-school age children, Callum and Elise, educated here. She says that if they had stayed in London any longer, they could have easily slipped into middle age there.

Marita Hanlon signed up with a number of Dublin-based recruitment agencies, but it was Clark Recruitment in Naas that came up with the goods.

Clark Recruitment was set up nearly three years ago by Deirdre Coghlan-Murray, its managing director, who had returned to Ireland in January, 1997, after working abroad, including seven years with a leading recruitment organisation in Australia. It caters for national and international companies in the area from Carlow to Citywest and for candidates who want to work in this region rather than commuting to Dublin.

Ms Coghlan-Murray says that individuals and companies working with them will find absolute transparency, openness and clarity, with a strong emphasis on always listening. Marita Hanlon says that she found the agency very proactive and friendly. "Out of all the agencies I tried, this was the best," she says.

Clark Recruitment came up with the interesting job with the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, which looks after intellectually disabled people from a wide area of the midlands. Marita Hanlon is the financial project manager and says: "It's a very interesting change. Previously, I was churning out financial reports. It's a local job and means I can give something back to the community."

Her husband found work as soon as they returned, but it was in Blackrock, Co Dublin, but the long commute there from Athy, where they live, encouraged him to find more locally-based work. He's now working in project management in Intel in Leixlip, which is about an hour's drive away. It takes Marita Hanlon about half an hour to drive to work. The family are living in a rented house in Athy but plan to buy or build their own in the vicinity.