The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said following the ending of the eviction ban, that it would be "very, very rare" for judges to evict individuals and families into homelessness.
He said he expected the number of evictions to be very small.
Speaking on arrival at the second day of an EU summit today, Leo Varadkar said: "I can guarantee you that judges are very reluctant to evict people into homelessness."
He said the factors driving people into emergency accommodation were manifold and it was rarely due to eviction notices.
"If you look at the last couple of months, when the number of people in emergency accommodation increased every month, there was an eviction ban in place," Mr Varadkar said.
"What were the reasons? It was family breakdown. It was all sorts of different other issues as to why people look for emergency accommodation - increasing numbers of families of people from overseas as well seeking emergency accommodation.
"So this idea that the Opposition put across that notices of termination turn to eviction turns to a person seeking emergency accommodation - that's not how it works."
He said in cases where tenants would "overhold", the Taoiseach said that in the vast majority of cases landlords were "reasonable".
He said: "They will understand that sometimes people will need more time to find an alternative place to go and, provided they're paying the rent, a lot of property owners [or] landlords will be reasonable."
The Taoiseach said a recent case brought up by the Opposition in the Dáil demonised a landlord for evicting a person when it turned out that the landlord was dead and that it was an executor sale.
Meanwhile, Minister for Justice Simon Harris said he rejects "the assertion" that the lifting of the eviction ban is accelerating people being evicted from their homes.
He said the temporary eviction ban did not have the desired effect and added it was "only ever a temporary breathing space" to allow more housing capacity come through along with other measures.
The Minister said now if people are at risk of homelessness the local authority is empowered to do things it was not able to a few months ago and buy homes.
No 'bargaining' for support on confidence vote - Martin
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said there will not be any "bargaining" in a search for votes next week as it faces a Dáil vote of no confidence and that the Government will stand on its record.
Mr Martin said he's confident the Government will win the vote which has been tabled by the Labour Party in the wake of the decision to end the ban on evictions.
Speaking at the opening of a nine-apartment unit developed by the Peter McVerry Trust at a former CBS secondary school building in Charleville, Co Cork, Mr Martin said the Government is "resolutely focused" on housing and exceeding last year's figures for new housing provision.
Asked if there will be concessions to independent TDs in a bid to secure support in the confidence vote, the Tánaiste said: "This is a confidence vote, the Government will stand on its record next week, there's not going to be any bargaining or anything like that next week.
"We're always open to ideas in terms of housing and so on like that, but in the context of the vote next week, just looking at the figures from Cork for example in terms of employment, a significant drop in the unemployment register in Cork county and Cork city, that's reflected across the country."
He said the challenge in terms of housing is getting apartments and houses built quickly and said the Government "will have to use modern methods of construction to enable us to do that".
Additional reporting Conor Kane
