More than 28,000 commercial property units lay vacant in Ireland in the second quarter of 2014, an increase on the number of disused premises for the same period last year.

New research published today by GeoView shows that 28,013 of the country’s 223,152 commercial building stock were unused, increasing to 12.6 per cent from 11.9 per cent in 2013.

GeoView is published by GeoDirectory, an organisation established by An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland to create and manage a national database of commercial and residential buildings. It is the sixth quarterly edition monitoring commercial trends.

Only Co Kerry and Co Carlow experienced a decrease in the number of vacant commercial properties.

GeoView showed that of all the units employed in the manufacturing sector, the majority - 15.4 per cent or 1,203 units - were involved in food production.

The highest vacancy rates are found in Sligo (16 per cent), followed by Leitrim (15.5 per cent) and Galway (14.8 per cent).