Any eviction ban will see more private landlords leave the market and vulture funds to take over.
That's according to the Irish Property Owner’s Association (IPOA), which is warning against any eviction ban being proposed.
The Attorney-General has been asked to rule on whether the Government could ban all evictions until after the winter.
Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien has said the Government still has not come to a decision on it.
Chair of the IPOA Mary Conway said a ban would make things worse.
"We would be completely opposed to an eviction ban," she said. "We don't think it serves anybody.
"It doesn't serve the tenant; it doesn't serve the landlords.
"Landlords are not immune to the cost of living either; rental incomes have been capped at 2% for the last number of years, inflation has gone up, mortgage interest rates have gone up.
"I think what we need to do is we all need to sit down and work in collaboration together to see what we can do to help our tenants."
She said any such ban will likely be extended, and this will force more private landlords out of the market.
"What's going to happen is landlords are going to go into arrears, mortgages are not being paid, and then the tenants are going to be evicted by the vulture funds who take over the houses - and it's a lot worse."
She said nothing will change between now and next year, when any apparent ban would end.
"If I decided that I was evicting a tenant today, they have until the 8th of April to find somewhere.
"The difficulty is if we put an eviction ban in now, nothing's going to change by March.
"Where are we suddenly going to get all these houses; we need to just sit together and work to see what we can do.
"An eviction ban isn't going to serve anybody."
Ms Conway said that nobody is going to be "turfed out" of a property.
"The RTB have very strict controls in place: if somebody is more than six months in a house, and less than a year, they have 152 days.
"There's nothing to be served here, it's just the Government getting a bit of publicity to be seen to be doing something for renters."
She said most landlords are not actually making money.
"Landlords are paying mortgages, they're paying Revenue, they're paying any of the unexpected costs that come up with regards to repairs, damage to a property.
"Most landlords I know are struggling to get by and that's why they're leaving the market."
Citing one issue, she said: "If a social tenant paying HAP stops paying their portion to the county council, then the landlord doesn't get any rent.
"So we've been looking at putting things in place for people with regards to their bills; can we also look at doing something in regards to people with their rent, so that nobody loses out?"
And she said landlords are being blamed for Government failures.
"Landlords are being made scapegoats here - the whole problem is that the Government have not provided enough social housing over the last number of years.
"And people that are in private housing should be in social housing, and the Government have failed to provide these houses," she added.
