Ms Eibhlín Roche:

I thank the committee for inviting the Guinness archive to engage with it on this topic. The Guinness archive is based in the Guinness Storehouse, which is Ireland's premier visitor attraction. It is part of Diageo's operation in Ireland. It is an unusual archive service in the Irish cultural landscape. It is a corporate archive which, as well as fulfilling a service to its parent organisation, is also open to the public.

The Guinness company was founded in 1759 and there has always been a culture and philosophy within the organisation of both recognising the importance of the company's own heritage and its role within the culture of Ireland, and the need to preserve this heritage. Today, the Guinness archive spans over 7,000 linear metres of paper records documenting the history of St. James's Gate brewery and the Guinness brand in Ireland from 1759 to the present. Many researchers will be familiar with the 1901 and 1911 census, military records and church records, as we heard earlier today, but records of private industry are often neglected sources of genealogical information.

The Guinness company has been an integral part of Dublin's economic life for over two centuries. By 1930, for example, it was estimated that one in 30 people in Dublin relied on the Guinness company for their livelihood. It was the single largest employer in the city for over a century.

Part of our extensive archive collection contains the personnel or employment records of 20,000 such past employees, providing an important private social record which complements the official State record.

The Guinness Archive is unique in an Irish context in first, preserving these records and, second, making them publically accessible. Over the past number of years we have heavily invested in making this information more publically accessible. We have published a database of past employees on our website,guinnesss-storehouse.com, and this database is also available in the public research room of the Guinness Archive. Recently, we made our database available on Ancestry.co.ukas part of the data sets that are available to access for free on the website.

Due to the often sensitive nature of the information contained within the personnel files, which can extend to financial and medical information, the Guinness Archive only allows direct descendents full access to original employment files. As per data protection legislation, we do not allow access to the personnel files of living individuals and we only publically release details of past employees who we know are deceased or were born more than 110 years ago.

The information we have made publically available is information that is either already part of the official record or information that is not deemed personally sensitive. It is important to note these files are files of private industry and not public files, that is, State records, which means the content of these files has to be treated differently from State records.

Within the Guinness Storehouse, we certainly feel we are offering an important public service by making these employment records publically available. Our researchers are mainly Irish but, increasingly, we are receiving genealogical queries from researchers around the world. Guinness Storehouse received almost 1.1 million visitors in 2012, a 6% increase on 2011 visitor numbers. This year, the year of The Gathering, I am happy to say we are on track to exceed our 2012 visitor numbers. As we all know, The Gathering has highlighted the importance of our cultural heritage, tapping into the global Irish diaspora of more than 70 million people.

The latest Fáilte Ireland figures specifically relating to genealogy tourism are slightly old and date from 2011 when an estimated 92,000 overseas visitors engaged in tracing roots-genealogical activities. It will be interesting to see the impact of The Gathering on the 2012 genealogy tourism numbers.

It is imperative that initiatives such as The Gathering are backed up by access to genealogical resources, both public and private, and that records are viewed as part of our heritage to be valued and preserved as much as our castles and gardens.

However, our genealogy records are not just of importance for tourism. As we enter the decade of centenaries, our historical archives are the window to the past, to accurately explore the history of Ireland during the 1912-22 period. Genealogical records form an important part of our national collective memory and will form an important part of the historical debate on the events of this era.

To put that into context in terms of the Guinness Archive collection, we hold a large amount of historical material relating to the First World War. This material ranges from the impact of the war on the company's operation to files relating to the 800 men who left the brewery to fight in the war. These files are a hugely important sources for genealogical research and very much complement the official State and military records to bring a more complete history to life.

The investment Diageo has made in the Guinness Archive and the focus on preserving and making accessible the archive holdings to public is, ultimately, an investment in preserving a part of our national culture. Records of private industry are as important, in genealogical terms, as official State records and should, therefore, form part of the national debate when considering a plan to capture the full value of our genealogical heritage.