The Taoiseach has been accused of making contradictory statements about one-off housing in rural areas and local authorities have been attacked for failing to exercise their duty to register landlords.
The criticisms come on a day the Central Bank warned that the housing market in Ireland is in danger of collapse.
The Irish Rural Dwellers Association (IRDA) today said the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had performed a "u-turn" in a Dáil statement when he agreed with the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen's view that the building of homes in rural areas should be restricted to local landowners and their immediate families.
IRDA spokesman, Mr Declan MacPartlin, said he was "shocked" that just two weeks after backing a relaxation of current restrictions, Mr Ahern was now behind a regime which is "even more restrictive than that indicated in the National Spatial Strategy".
He said Mr Cullen was also contradicting earlier statements and that of Minister of State for Rural Development Mr Eamon O'Cuiv.
"Members of this Government appear to have diametrically opposed views on rural housing," Mr MacPartlin said. However the IRDA have widespread support among local authority politicians, he added.
Meanwhile, Labour Party justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello hit out at local authorities' failure to regulate the rental sector, accusing them of "hypocrisy and double standards".
Speaking in the Dáil, the Dublin Central TD said local authorities were required to register landlords under legislation introduced in the mid-90s. However, "they simply did not exercise their duty on the implementation of the law", Mr Costello said.
He pointed out that the legislation was self-financing because the local authority was entitled to charge a registration fee of £40 per unit of accommodation.
"Compare this with the rush to implement the legislation on waste collection ... the ink was scarcely dry on when the Dublin local authorities threatened dire consequences ... and Fingal County Council put a TD in jail for a month.
"We will have to wait a long time to see a landlord in jail for a month for evicting a family," Mr Costello said.
He said hundreds of thousands of people who cannot afford to buy were being discriminated against as a consequence.
The authorities' failure to implement the provision meant the opportunity to ensure good standards and tax compliance had been lost, he added.