@GSheehy Sure, happy to pull something together. Any particular aspects? I'm a couple of years out from having been directly involved but doubt things have changed much. In summary, it was mainly a matter of figuring out the various layers of costs to make funds available to the product (often multiple layers of costs between asset manager, distributors, some related group companies, plus a bit of margin for the local entity who actually sells the product), and balancing this out with different commission levels/structures to manage advisor driven churn (ie lower initial commissions, offset by higher ongoing trail commissions), all while making sure it's generating enough return on various standard metrics (payback, IRR, NPV), whilst understanding the impact on regulatory solvency of the structures. As described, there are a number of competing components to it, but most of it was playing around in the broker/commission space in my experience. Occasional launch of new funds, or perhaps regulatory change (eg the Solvency II rules, or PRSA changes).
I was always a bit miffed at how UK equivalents were significantly cheaper. I expect it was something to do with additional layers in the product chain, all looking for a cut (a lot of our insurance companies are part of international insurance groups). Might also have something to do with investments environment in the UK where things are much much cheaper, and tax friendly with ISA's, much higher CGT allowances etc. Also ability to trade in stocks directly and cheaply in the UK is much more commonplace, so insurance vehicles just wouldn't compete with the level of charges we tolerate in Ireland. Obviously they benefit from much bigger scale as well, but that's not justification for the cost differences.
@zephyro thanks. I've looked into both of those and they look like real possibilities. Even though i hadn't heard of Interactive Brokers, and their website looks terrible, they are enormous and global. And DeGiro regulated by a few of the more robust European regulators as well, so perhaps that gives some comfort over security. Particularly with segregation of client asset requirements. Obviously nothing is risk-free but I've no reason to believe that just because I'm paying Davy's 0.5%+ for very little, that they'll be any more secure or compliant with the rules.
And agree on your other point as well. I wouldn't intend to do anything fancy at all here aside from directly hold a broad range of equities, and review maybe once a year. I'm certainly not naïve enough to believe i know more about companies or equities than the market, however i'm just not convinced the asset managers do either (certainly not net of the fees that will be charged).