Thousands of empty homes could be renovated at a "reasonable" price to help ease the housing crisis, a new report shows.

Some 34,000 of 167,000 empty properties could be refurbished, says a report from the Hardware Association Ireland, launched yesterday.

Its plan, Empty Homes: Unlocking The Opportunity, aims to ease the housing crisis by making renovating empty homes more affordable and bringing a large chunk of Ireland's empty homes back into use. HAI chief Martin Markey said the measure could help solve the housing crisis. He said: "We have a huge stock of empty homes just waiting to be renovated, so it is a huge opportunity that we want to unlock.

"Tackling the issue of vacant homes is urgently needed, not just to help solve the housing crisis but also to rejuvenate cities and towns all over Ireland. Our proposals are very much carrot and stick. We want to provide incentives for people to bring empty homes back into use and make keeping unused homes financially difficult."

He added that "we have a vacancy rate of 8% in a housing crisis, and our cities and towns are being destroyed by row upon row of empty homes, so we hope the Government take on board our proposals".

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Mr Markey continued: "Renovating empty homes has the added benefit of affordability and they have much lower carbon emissions than building a new home.

"There are fewer planning complications and it can be done a lot quicker than new builds also."

Excluding homes tied up in legal issues, homes in the Fair Deal Scheme and homes vacant before 2016, the HAI estimates there are 34,000 empty homes that could be renovated for a reasonable price.

The aim of the plan is to bring more empty homes back into use by making the process affordable for first-time buyers.

The key proposals of the HAI plans include extending the Help to Buy scheme for people buying and renovating an empty property, grants and tax incentives for renovating and retrofitting empty homes, tax penalties for owners of derelict properties, and help to convert derelict commercial units into homes.