Yes and it begs the question of why even TDs who provide rental accommodation are reluctant to speak out about additional restrictions. It’s not like they’re in a secret drug cartel and killing or damaging citizens with their product.
They are terrified of being associated in any way with people who own rental property - even the ones who do themselves, who practically apologize for doing so. Social media, and a young generation of left-leaning journalists have been significant amplifiers and reinforcers.
This started during the credit crunch and Troika bailout - lots of people started listening to the 'burn it all down' wing of the economics community, learned to hate bankers, developers, speculators, bondholders, the ECB, the IMF, FF, etc and more or less became radicalized against capitalism and the whole concept of investment.
And they exited those years furious that that list of baddies seemed to more or less get away with it and/or just move on to something else. That anger and resentment didn't go though and it's been steered towards property owners and in particular - property owners unwise enough to display their apparent wealth to the public in the form of bricks and mortar they not only parade in front of the people, but actually let them sleep in. Worse - these investors aren't just taking a share of a company's profits resulting from prices set by some executives probably abroad, or bond coupons anonymously credited to their bank accounts, they are literally taking wages out of the hands of struggling ordinary people...
It really went wrong for the Irish rental market when the junior govt partner, Labour, got it's policy of introducing rent control imposed a decade ago. Why it has turned out to be a particular problem is that having gone along with it and introduced it, FG then got boxed in to not wanting to criticize their own policy choice. FF were still trying to go through the Irish political equivalent of readmission to the human race, having been blamed for bankrupting the country, so there was no interest there in saying, or even thinking, anything about the realities of capitalism and markets.
Fast forward a few years and another significant thing happened. coalition government and/or 'confidence and supply' (similar) between FF and FG effectively meant Ireland had no right-of-centre political opposition party of any significance. And rent control had been absorbed into government policy.
In a non-failing political system there should be strong or at lease robust opposition to government - otherwise you get bad government. On this policy there has been none. Ordinarily you would expect a government introducing rent control, seeing private tenancy numbers peak at that time and then fall year after year afterwards, would start to get heat from a centre-right opposition - whose politicians would actively want to understand why it might be damaging and self-defeating, would be falling over themselves to appear on talk shows and be interviewed on the radio to explain to the public how it was a bad decision and how change was needed. But there was no political dynamic to allow that to happen.
Then, as the rental market got worse, and the population increased along with household formation, there was more and more pressure from the opposition to act. But the opposition - to this traditionally left-wing policy - was the Left. So what action did they push for, and the press go on and on about? Tougher rent control, greater tenant rights, 'putting manners on landlords', eviction bans.....etc.
Well the government could hardly argue much against that because to do so would involve arguing their own policy had been damaging and in any case, since their TDs had had no incentive to take an interest in why rent control was counterproductive, they wouldn't have the confidence or technical competence to argue the case anyway.
So Ireland has ended up in a spiral of politicians distancing themselves from 'landlordism' and engaging in competitive signalling about how much they are on the side of tenants - and there is, structurally, no political force that can pull the country out of that spiral.
It is classic political dysfunction.