The Raise the Roof campaign group held a rally outside the Dáil calling for urgent Government action on Ireland's housing and homelessness crisis.
The group is coordinated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and is supported by most Opposition parties.
Hundreds of people gathered in Molesworth Street opposite Leinster House for the protest and the street was closed to traffic.
The event was heavily promoted by unions and Opposition parties and flags representing those bodies are prominent in the crowd.
The demonstrators were addressed by leaders of the main Opposition parties, including Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Labour leader Ivana Bacik and Paul Murphy - the PBP Solidarity TD who earlier returned from Egypt.
Ms McDonald told the crowd that it was shameful that children were calling a hostel or a B&B home.
She said it was shameful that the Government was normalising homelessness.
Mr Murphy said the housing crisis did not happen to everybody in the same way.
He said it was a manufactured crisis that saw a transfer of wealth from the workers and young people to the tiny few at the top - the corporate landlords and the big developers.
Social Democrats' housing spokesperson Rory Hearne said it was clearly Government policy to have a permanent housing crisis. He said it was a social catastrophe.
In the Dáil this evening, Sinn Fein tabled a series of amendments to the Government's Residential Tenancies Bill 2025, which seeks to extend Rent Pressure Zones across the country.
Sinn Féin TDs Eoin Ó Broin and Thomas Gould proposed reducing the Minister for Housing James Browne's planned 2% allowable annual increase in rents to 0%.
They also want - within a week of the bill being passed - the minister to publish a report on the introduction of an emergency ban on rent increases for all private rental tenants, including existing tenancies, new tenancies in existing rental stock and new tenancies in new rental stock.
The amendments put Sinn Féin on a collision course with the Government, which had been hoping their emergency legislation might secure Opposition backing.
Earlier, Ms McDonald said the Government's plan for the private rental sector could be labelled the Fianna Fáil rent hike bill and "no amount of spoofing can change that".
Ms McDonald was speaking in the Dáil after Minister for Housing James Browne said he was "very confident" that legislation expanding rent pressure zones (RPZ) across the country will be passed this week.
Speaking at a press conference on housing, Mr Browne said the Coalition is treating the housing crisis as an emergency.
Speaking during Leader's Questions, Ms McDonald said people who move home frequently such as students, healthcare workers and construction workers will be hammered under the rent reforms.
She described the plan as a bonanza for the big boys and one that was characterised by blunder after blunder.
"The only way to undo the damage is to go back to the drawing board," she said.
The Taoiseach rejected the criticism and insisted that renters would have greater protections than ever before.
Micheál Martin said that housing charity Threshold described the protections for renters as among the most robust in Europe.
He contended that the Sinn Féin proposal to freeze rents for three years would damage supply.
Ms McDonald said that she was raised in rental accommodation and she wants to ensure renters are not gouged or fleeced.
Mr Browne accused Sinn Féin of offering no solutions on housing because its plans were rejected by the people in the general election.
He said the only solution was more supply, but instead the Opposition were trading in cliches and personalisation.
'Chaotic drip-feed of housing changes'
Ms Bacik said the people living in homelessness know that the Government "hasn't got a leg to stand on when it comes to housing policy".
The Dublin Bay South TD accused the Cabinet of a "chaotic drip-feed of housing changes" which is "causing uncertainty".
She said there was "very little clarity for renters" on what the Government reforms will mean and there was "very little security" for those renters either.
The Labour leader said the situation is now "difficult", particularly given there is no special assistance to students or short-term renters who change dwellings regularly.
In reply, Mr Martin said the Cabinet had "no difficulty" in taking responsibility for decisions it takes on housing, adding the Labour Party "didn't have the courage" to go into Government after the General Election and take tough decisions.
Saying he knew the charge would "hurt", the Taoiseach claimed that Labour TD Alan Kelly wanted to go into Government but the rest of the party was "afraid to jump".
The Taoiseach added that housing completions in the first quarter of the year was 5,938 units, the highest since 2011.
Action welcome but not enough being done, says Focus Ireland
The Director of Advocacy at Focus Ireland said that the organisation welcomes a number of actions that the Government is doing in combating the housing crisis, but added that what is being done is not enough.
"From our perspective, the month-by-month increase in the number of people who are homeless, the number of children who are homeless, the length of time that people are homeless now; the damage it does to their lives is a clear indication that not enough is being done to deal with the problem," Mike Allen said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Six One News, Mr Allen said that the steps being taken by the Government in relation to rent are "incredibly complicated".
He said that the rent reform plan has some good elements - such as security for six years for new tenancies - but added that "the increase in rent that's going to take place when landlords are allowed to reset to the market rent, that reset is going to be very substantial".
He said that tenancy security is a good thing, but that if rent cannot be paid then the tenant is in a lot of difficulty.
Mr Allen said that the Cabinet needs to agree on increasing the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) level and a review on it needs to take place urgently.
"Nobody says that this is easy, but a solution which says 'we can deliver more housing, but the cost is that you won't be able to afford to live in it,' isn't a solution," he said.
Additional reporting: Mícheál Lehane
