Leo Varadkar has been blasted online for saying that a "balance" was needed between the regulation of rental costs and income for landlords.
The Fine Gael leader was speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday afternoon in place of the Taoiseach for Leader's Questions.
Micheál Martin is currently attending a UN event in the United States.
In his place, Mr Varadkar was asked by Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin to support a three-year ban on rent increases.
This was in response to the new legislation brought forward in July by Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien which tied rent increases in rent-pressure zones (RPZs) to the rate of inflation. Mr O'Brien said at the time that inflation had averaged 0.73% over three years.
However, n Irish Independent report from Tuesday morning claimed that inflation has now risen 3% in RPZ
In response to Ó Broin, Mr Varadkar said: “The number of rental properties available in Ireland is falling, landlords are leaving the rental market and bear in mind that most landlords, and I’m not one of them, only own one property or two, 86% only own one property or two.
"So we need to balance that too, one person’s rent is another person’s income, it might be their pension, it might be how they pay their mortgage.
"In a time of rising prices and in a time of rising interest rates, and that hasn’t come yet but it will come, if you freeze rents absolutely to zero, that could mean an income cut for another person, a pension cut for another person or another person unable to pay the mortgage on that property, exactly the problem that you identified, causing more landlords to leave.”
However people were furious on social media in response to Mr Varadkar's comments.
One man said: "If someone wants to purchase a second property, let them pay their own poxy mortgage. No one is forcing them to buy a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th property. If you can't afford a mortgage on your second property, then sell it. Simple as."
Another person noted: "If a landlord is using somebody's rent to pay their mortgage, they're not paying their mortgage, the renter is paying for their two mortgages"
While a third said: "Love paying for my landlords mortgage when I have no hope of ever getting one."
