One in three fail paternity

	( Greg Baxter )

Ireland’s largest paternity test provider has revealed that one in three men tested proves not to be the biological parent.
Ormonde Quay Paternity Services said the figure was based on about 300 tests carried out last year, with 35 per cent of men failing the test. The service carries out about six tests per week, a spokesman told Irish Medical Times.

The company has been involved in paternity testing for a short time, but business is ‘flying’, the spokesman said, adding, ‘there is huge demand’. He said there had been an 80 per cent increase in workload from 2006 to 2007. The spokesman said the reason the company had made this announcement was to highlight the consequences of a binge-drinking culture, and said the high rate of failed paternity tests, or paternity tests in general, may be a ‘reflection on society’.