Bernie Purcell and John Milton in Phoenix

Phoenix October 4, 2013

AN OLD friend of Goldhawk’s has just been landed with a whopping €13.1m judgment from Ulster Bank. It certainly has been some fall from grace for Bernie Purcell.

Bernie’s most interesting role was that with an organisation called Women of Wealth (WoW), where she was one of the founding members. She found herself airbrushed from the website here after hitting the headlines in 2007 over the rather expensive counselling service on offer from her company (see The Phoenix 2/11/07). WoW distanced itself quickly from Purcell when it emerged the latter’s counselling outfit, the Roebuck Centre, had been charging some clients up to €1/4m for “life mentoring” courses.

Roebuck ends up in Stubbs Gazette!

In 2007 there was a lot of publicity concerning Roebuck House a therapy centre in Rathgar, Dublin.There were charges of financial, psychological and emotional abuse brought against the therapists there. The place seemed to be closed but there are reports of activities still continuing there to the present. Dialogue Ireland has had reports from families about concerns that some of the former therapists  might be still be functioning without public scrutiny.

Six years later it appears that the principles John Milton and Bernie Purcell have come to the end of the line as they have appeared in Stubbs Gazette. This was reported in the Sunday Business Post on September 29, 2013

Wexford nursing home jobs in jeopardy – Roebuck connections?

The Irish Times – Thursday, April 1, 2010

Wexford nursing home jobs in jeopardy

DAVID LOOBY and EITHNE DONNELLAN

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0401/1224267476105.html

THE JOBS of 51 staff at a private nursing home in Co Wexford are in jeopardy as patients at the facility are being moved on to other nursing homes. For the past five weeks most of the staff at Carrig Tur nursing home in Enniscorthy have not been paid, while their efforts to speak to management have proven unsuccessful. The proprietor of the home is Bernie Purcell who is also a director of Roebuck Consulting Ltd. That company was at the centre of controversy in 2008 for charging sums of up to €250,000 for “life-mentoring” services.

The new web site for “Roebuck Survivors.”

In 2007 there was a lot of publicity concerning Roebuck House a therapy centre in Rathgar, Dublin.

IACP Statement regarding Roebuck

Statement

from The Irish Association for

Counselling & Psychotherapy – IACP

regarding the outcome of investigation

into

Roebuck Counselling Centre in

Rathgar, Co. Dublin.

13/06/2008

The Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP) representing over 3000 members nationwide would like to acknowledge the levels of distress and upset felt by Counselling and Psychotherapy consumers and practitioners in relation to the recent media revelations regarding practices at Roebuck Counselling Centre in Rathgar,Co. Dublin .

Roebuck – a personal account

The MayoNews
Tuesday, 30 October 2007

“She said if I paid her €200,000, she’d turn it into €2 million in two years by fine-tuning my skills”

Personal Account
Denise Horan

WHEN Michael Kean’s wife, Catherine, told him the centre at which she was training to be a psychotherapist required the fees for her next two years before she had even completed her first, he thought little of it. Catherine was well into her first year at the Roebuck Counselling Centre, and was enjoying the experience. So when, on April 1 last, Claire Hoban told her that if she paid the next two years’ fees up front, she would receive a discount of €800 (the annual fee was €3,300 or €5,800 for two years, paid in advance), her husband readily agreed.