The Minister for Housing has told the Dáil that the exit of "mom and pop landlords" is a problem for the rental sector.
Darragh O'Brien said that Covid-19 had "badly affected" some landlords.
But he added that it is a multifaceted problem, with rising property values allowing some landlords to sell up.
Minister O'Brien was responding to Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin, who said that a "disorderly exit" of landlords was driving family homelessness.
Deputy Ó Broin cited figures which indicate that there are "three times more exits than entries" of landlords in the sector.
The minister accused the deputy of "demonising landlords", and then "bemoaning" the impact that his criticism is having.
Labour's Ged Nash lamented that "dereliction is a massive, massive problem", including in his home town of Drogheda.
"It really shames us all", he said, adding that it has a huge impact on society.
Sinn Féin's Thomas Gould said that he was "astounded" to be told at today's housing committee that dereliction rates in Ireland were below the EU average.
He invited Minister of State Peter Burke down to Cork, to see for himself if the many vacant properties "are below average".
Deputy Gould then called on the Government to "end the scourge of dereliction".
"There is now one official in the Housing Department" working full-time on the issue, he said.
"It's shocking", Deputy Gould added, and called for a whole section to be tasked with tackling the issue.
Minister Burke said the deputy was like "a comic stand-up", and accused him of being "unable to listen".
The two men then talked over each other in a bad-tempered exchange.
Minister O'Brien told the House that the Government is "enabling new supply" of housing, "from unactivated sites", in order to "avoid competing with private purchasers".
"The last thing we want to do is squeeze out owner-occupier, first-time buyers," the minister told Deputy Ó Broin.
And he insisted that the evidence points to an uptick in construction in the sector.
"We won't be bullied by you," he said to Mr Ó Broin, in a heated exchange.
The minister told the Social Democrats' Cian O'Callaghan that the Government aims to provide 2,500 affordable homes for purchase this year.
