Well, 223bn, but what's 77bn between friends? About 40% GDP. This puts it fairly low as far as developed countries go (Germany's 66%, UK 97%, US 130%, Japan 264%).
> Governing is giving free houses
I mean, not notably.
> money to people who don't work
Ireland has functional full employment (about 4% unemployment rate). Social welfare isn't particularly lavish by Western European standards.
> One in five people are directly or indirectly employed by the government of a tiny country.
That's reasonably low by western European standards.
Ireland has lots of problems, but _not spending enough money_ isn't one of them. We're not a particularly high-tax country by Western European standards, and we're running a surplus. If anything we should probably be spending more, to sort out the housing crisis if nothing else.