It's Father's Day. Don't say you forgot.

Newstalk 106 presenter George Hook was looking forward to today more than any other Father's Day he's ever had. For the first time, he's getting a fuss made out of him. And he can't wait.

"It was all about Mother's Day in our house, and Father's Day never really registered, " he said. "I was a sh*te father and a sh*te husband. But this week, for the first time ever, my son rang me and said that he's got a restaurant booked and that I'm being brought out for the day. I'm really chuffed about it, I have to say."

With three children . . . two girls and a boy . . . now between the ages of 25-32, Hook says he's can't be as tough on discipline as he was in the past.

"I'm a strict father, " he said.

"But it almost doesn't matter now, because they're older.

Still, I think I manage it."

His daughters bore the brunt of his worrying ways, especially if they brought an unsuspecting beau back to meet the family. "There was one famous occasion where a fella kept my eldest girl out long after curfew, " he says.

"So I caught the boy by his shirtfront and put him up against the wall and told him never to come near my daughter again. And he didn't."

Hook also wasn't exactly a DIY dad. He tells of making an arrangement with his wife that if she wanted grass instead of tarmac, she had to be willing to cut it herself. "It was sort of a pre-nuptial agreement, " he said. "So one time, when she was nine months pregnant and weighing about 42 stone, she went out with a big rattling old lawnmower and started pushing it around the garden. And I was sitting inside watching tv. I was intensely unpopular with the neighbours after that."

Also a self-professed DIY disaster is World Champion poker player, Donnacha O'Dea. His handyman duties around the house extend to doing "a lot of barbequeing when the summer comes".

O'Dea, who has two children in their 20s, doesn't see himself as a strict father. "I'd say I'm fairly easy-going, " he says. "More so than my wife.

But then my daughter will always ask my wife for permission for something before me, so I suppose more discipline means more respect."

Despite claims that he never played cards with his kids when they were younger, O'Dea's son has followed him into the world of professional poker playing. "When he was 15, I just jokingly gave him a poker computer game that I won at one of the Vegas tournaments, " says O'Dea. "Suddenly, he had started playing mock tournaments, and now he's won a seat worth $10,000 at a Vegas tournament. He's better than me."

Children's author Eoin Colfer also shares his trade with his two young sons, particularly his eight-year-old son Finn, by telling him bedtime stories of his famous character, Artemis Fowl. "Of course, I change them slightly, so that Finn is always the clever one, and Artemis is looking up to him, " he says.

Colfer likes to think of himself as an easy-going dad, but admits that his worries often get the better of him. "I can't help thinking that if we don't have strict rules and discipline, then they'll go off the rails, but I don't want to be a strict father, " he says.

Having spent yesterday at a family wedding, the Colfers intend to spend Father's Day relaxing. "The only present I'll be looking for is a head massage, " says Colfer. "Then I'll be happy."