Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she cannot understand how the Government's cost of living package provides nothing for renters.
Ms McDonald said mortgage holders are having to pay more each month while renters are holding on by a thread but this "didn't cross the mind" of the three Government party leaders.
"It beggars belief that you would produce a package that ignores rents," she told the Dáil and said a generation of young people are now being forced to leave the country because of the housing crisis.
Sinn Féin again called for a three-year ban on rent increases, an extension of the evictions ban to the end of the year, a credit for renters and targeted mortgage interest relief.
The Taoiseach said people and businesses are struggling with rising costs but the Government has already taken 25 actions leading to permanent tax cuts for workers, welfare increases, lower childcare, public transport and healthcare costs and reduced students fees.
Leo Varadkar said that under Sinn Féin plans, the price of petrol and diesel would have risen quicker and there would have been no extension of the lower VAT for the hospitality sector.
Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall said the new cost-of-living measures go "nowhere near" to do what is required to assist people dealing with soaring bills.
The truth was that people are now "living in fear" of the next electricity bill, the next gas bill, knowing that they cannot possibly manage, she said.
Deputy Shortall said the package was "especially disappointing" given the Taoiseach had promised to do "everything in his power" to tackle child poverty.
She argued that lump sum payments would not work, when core social welfare payments had fallen way behind inflation.
Deputy Shortall said the Government had not learned the lessons from their last failed Budget, but were clearly intent on repeating them.
Mr Varadkar said the cost of living package was never going to be a budget, and therefore weekly payments were not going to increase.
It was "patently untrue" that the Government was not assisting the weakest in society, he said.
The Taoiseach said there would be a €100 lump sum child benefit payment in June; and those who qualified for working family payment would receive €200 in April.
He said that was on top of an extra Back to School payment, free school books, and an expansion of the hot school meal to every DEIS school.
Reporting Paul Cunningham and Micheál Lehane
