An increasing number of landlords in Dublin are demanding tenants pay two months’ rent as a deposit, according to reports.

It comes as a new poll finds that the number of people who hold the cost of rent as their number one national concern doubled in the last year.

The standard for many years has been for landlords to charge a security deposit of one month’s rent alongside the first month’s rent.

However, according to reports in The Irish Times, Ireland’s largest private landlord, Irish Residential Properties Reit (IRES) is now asking almost all of its tenants to pay two month’s rent as a deposit – resulting in an effective payment of three month’s rent to secure accommodation.

The company owns 2,400 apartments in the greater Dublin area and the news has led to fears other smaller landlords will follow suit.

It has amassed the property portfolio in the three years since it was established in 2014.

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Labour TD and former Minister for Housing Jan O’Sullivan called for process to be stopped immediately.

“The residential tenancies board as you know has the power to intervene in these kinds of disputes and if they are looking for two months deposit as well as the first month’s rent - I am not sure if that is actually legally allowed,” she said.

“I think most definitively there can be ministerial intervention if that is needed to stop this.”

Earlier this month the Dublin Tenants Association held a protest outside the IRES head offices to highlight escalating rents and the wider issue of Government-supported vulture fund activity in Dublin’s crisis hit housing market.