The Opposition says it will fight "tooth and nail" any attempt to rush new laws on rent through the Dáil.
Four opposition TDs who were members of the Housing Committee have published a minority report on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (No 2) Bill.
Sinn Féin's Housing Spokesman Eoin O'Broin called it the "rip off rent bill", saying the overwhelming majority of the amendments proposed by the Opposition were not accepted.
He said the bill was "the most profound change to the regulation of the private rental sector in over a decade, and would make fundamental and very negative changes to rents as well as security of tenure provisions for renters".
He said it would mean "rip off rents will raise even higher" from March, and he said there would be three different sets of security of tenure provisions for renters.
Deputy O’Broin said all renters should be treated the same, and called on the Government to scrap the bill in its entirety.
"I’m deeply disappointed by the rumours we’re hearing that the Government intends to ram this through the Dáil in about four weeks," saying they would fight tooth and nail to ensure it was not rushed through.
The Social Democrats Housing spokesman, Rory Hearne, said it was "deeply disappointing to see the Government is still pushing ahead with these proposals".
He said key experts highlighted very clearly that these measures would lead to higher rents, saying "no-one disagreed with that".
Changes 'not going to help renters' - SD
The TD for Dublin North West said you could already see new rents of €3,000 per month in the capital.
"We need to be very clear [these changes] are not going to help renters."
Deputy Hearne said they would effectively remove rent controls as they operate now.
"One of the groups that are going to be most affected by these changes are students", because they leave tenancies after an academic year and said student rents would "hit the absolute roof".
"Why is the Government doing this?" he asked, "because the investor funds lobbied really, really hard on the Government to remove the intertenancy rental cap".
He said the Government was putting investor funds ahead of young people and he called on renters, the public and trade unions to contact their TDs asking for the Government to drop the legislation.
Govt 'dances to the tune of corporate landlords' - PBP
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said they were trying to "ring the alarm bells ...that shamefully against the background of totally unaffordable rents out there that the Government is proposing a bill that will actually drive up rents and ...worsen the rental and housing crisis".
He said the Government "consistently dances to the tune of corporate landlords".
Deputy Boyd Barrett said that "what we should have had is a bill that is seeking to drive down rents and make them more affordable".
Labour’s Housing spokesperson, Conor Sheehan said the "rent hike bill" as he called it, showed that "the minister and the Government want to completely deregulate the private rental market".
He said the provisions that are there in relation to security of tenure would be completely undermined by the ability of a landlord to reset the rent between tenancies.
The TD for Limerick city said this was "going to drive rents up and yet again undermine renting as a long-term housing option for thousands of people all around the country".
Deputy O’Broin said Rent Pressure Zones were introduced to tackle the rise in rents of around 10-20% around 2014-2016.
He said from 1 March, landlords will be able to increase rents to market rates for new tenancies where the previous tenant left voluntarily.
The Dublin Mid West TD said where the previous tenant was evicted for no fault grounds, the landlord would be able to increase the rent after six years.
Deputy O’Broin said the situation would be most dire for new rental starts...where landlords would be able to set the rent at the top of the market and could raise it every year thereafter.
He said this would mean that within four years, the overwhelming majority of renters would be paying full market rent.
Rent prices 'driving homelessness' - SF
He said the price of rents was "driving homelessness, it’s driving emigration of young people, it’s forcing young people to move back into the box bedroom of their parents’ homes, it’s also creating a real nightmare for people approaching pension age in the private rental sector".
He said the consequences for renters would be devastating.
Rory Hearne said "we have seen a massive wave of evictions of renters" pointing to 15,000 households being evicted in the first nine months of 2025.
He said that when these people are evicted, there are few options of where to go, meaning they’re more likely to go into homelessness.
He said, "we know we’ve 60,000 households in the private rented sector receiving HAP" and he predicted many of these would become homeless as a result of these measure.
Conor Sheehan predicted that we would see an additional 25,000 homeless people as a result of the proposed legislation.
Richard Boyd Barrett said rents were absolutely unsustainable and based on profiteering and he accused landlords of letting properties remain idle until the legislation was passed.
"We need to mobilise against this really outrageous bill," he said.
