Hi Boyd,
Thank you for your time responding to this post. I confess I haven't looked for other similar posts. In the rush, I ended up writing another one. But thanks for the tip, I'll read other posts.
Answering your questions:
1. I want to invest to get a higher return than the banks have given me.
2. I am moderate in terms of risks, but I don't mind taking some risks.
3. I already have an emergency fund to deal with contingencies, so if my 20k became 10k overnight I would wait for the market to recover because I know it goes up and down is part of the financial market cycle.
4. No existing mortgage, the apartment is already mine, I have an employer pension plan, emergency fund, no kids, no college fund, car loan already paid and I use credit cards only when I go on holidays and need to rent a car.
I just found out that New Ireland Assurance is the company looking after my employer pension plan and they also have some investments. I will make an appointment with them to discuss a few things but beforehand, I wanted to know if the management's and performance's fees are not above the values applied by other companies in the same sector.