This Sunday is census night, and the Central Statistics Office says that everyone is legally bound to fill out the form, which will only be used for compiling statistical tables.

Following the 2011 census, they took five successful prosecutions against people for refusing to fill out the census.

The CSO are knocking on 2 million doors to hand out and collect the paper forms.

"It's only really of use when everyone fills it out," Deirdre Cullen of the CSO told Moncrieff on Newstalk. "It's the only source of data that provides information right down the town and village level.

"The vast majority of people do co-operate."

The form covers who is in every dwelling this Sunday night, April 24 - and even if your spouse or another resident is absent, you put them down as absent.

Those staying in hotels and guesthouses will be handed census forms. while even lorry drivers parked up in Rosslare about to leave the country will be taken into account.

If you're out for a pint until gone midnight, you put down where you're sleeping.

Deirdre Cullen from the CSO explained that names are important to be able to decode information in the form, but they will only release anonymous data in the form of statistical tables.

"Everything we do is always only for statistical analysis... it's just statistical tables that come out of the CSO."

For more information, listen to the Moncrieff Show's how-to guide: