3. Choice of Funds from Cornmarket
In the original OP I talked about some of the equity index funds you can invest in via Irish Life from Cornmarket.
After doing a bit more digging on the bond funds they have available, the only one that seems to have performed well over a long period of time is the "Indexed Fixed Interest Fund" (bearing in mind past performance not an indicator of future performance). This fund invests in 50% Euro government bonds and 50% Euro corporate bonds. It isn't technically an index fund because it tracks the bond allocation in the Irish Life Consensus Fund, which, in turn, tracks the allocation of bonds in various actively managed funds. At the same time it seems to be the only decent bond fund Irish life have available with lower fees and there isn't a nice global one. Would welcome views from others on this - the indexed European gilts fund seemed like it might be OK too but has very high fees and got absolutely hammered by interest rate rises.
For the equity funds, it appears that the "World Equity Indexed Fund" has lower fees than the "Global Indexed Fund", so the former would be the one to go for. They both track different indices but the end difference between both shouldn't be material and the difference in fees for the world equity indexed fund should mean it pulls out in front over time.