A Cork camogie player and All-Ireland winner says neither landlords nor Governments care "as long as their own pockets are lined".
Ashling Thompson was speaking as she is struggling to find a place to live, having moved back home with her parents.
It comes as rents around the country are up more than 10% year-on-year - with the number of properties available at an all-time low.
There were just short of 1,400 homes available to rent on the property website Daft.ie last month, the lowest amount recorded in the website's history.
Ashling told The Hard Shoulder there seems to be no accountability.
"I'm currently living at home myself - last year I was renting in Limerick city with my partner.
"We decided to go travelling just after our season had finished; so we went away for about six weeks - and we had to move out of the home that we were in.
"Since then we've been back... and we've been looking and searching trying to find somewhere to move out.
"Our independence is very important in terms of training and all that kind of stuff.
"It's next to impossible to find somewhere... obviously there's very few places, but then just the amount of money that you'd be spending.
"We're trying to save at the same time, the bigger picture is to buy a house.
"But you can't rent and save at the same time - the two of us are living at each other's parents house".
'It's very demoralising'
Ashling says she knows of people who have bought a house, but are renting it out to make a profit on the mortgage.
"I think the Government are probably only making life more difficult as things are and rent increases.
"There seems to be no accountability in terms of landlords or anything like that.
"There's plenty of people that I probably would know of myself, and I'm hearing that they're mortgaging houses themselves - but they're actually renting it out to people.
"As in they might be living at home, but having a mortgage on a house.
"They're renting it, so tenants are actually paying for their mortgage with a profit.
"There seems to be no rules there, so that's obviously very demorilising".
"The Government are making life extremely difficult and I'm actually fortunate enough to have my home available to me, whereas other people don't have that choice."
And she says no one seems to care about the situation.
"I don't think anyone cares, in terms of landlords or Government, they don't care as long as their own pockets are lined.
"We talk about emergency housing and things like that, but rent increases are now, and you're talking about emergency housing that won't happen in the next year.
"Do they just expect people to live on the side of the road while they're going home to their warm houses?
"I don't think anyone's taking any accountability and it's madness, really".
'We'll just have to stay at home'
She says where they were living previously was actually through someone they knew.
"Last year it was actually through somebody we knew, we were actually very lucky with where we were living last year.
"It was actually through a contact, it wasn't through going out on Daft or Indeed or any of them.
"It was actually just a connection, and I think that's probably the route we'll have to go.
"And if not, we'll just have to stay at home".
She says they recently looked at a one bedroom place for €1,000 "and that was actually cheap".
While at the other end of the scale, a house "in not a great location in Limerick" was €2,500.
"A nice home all the same, but for the location and what you were getting out of it, you're looking at bills then and everything else on top of it.
"It was just ridiculous money."
And Ashling says even looking online is a tough process.
"Anything that does go up, the availability is literally gone within seconds. You literally have to be online when houses are going up."
