I've recently become a fan of Lie to Me, a US television series in which Tim Roth plays an expert in body language, applied psychology and microexpression. That last bit is the most interesting part of the show; Roth's character purports to be able to detect a variety of emotions– fear, happiness, guilt etc – by zoning in on the tiniest changes in somebody's facial expressions. As far as I can tell, it's based on an actual science called Facial Action Coding System, which categorises the physical expression of emotions. Rooting its plotlines in the real world of lies and deception, Lie to Me regularly flashes up photos of politicians like Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich or John McCain to hammer home how a specific facial expression reflects some kind of inner turmoil.

If Americans knew who Paul Gogarty was, I've no doubt he'd be featuring on Lie to Me sometime soon. His "f**k you, Deputy Stagg" performance in the Dáil the other week – still an internet phenomenon as I write – was made for the kind of analysis Tim Roth's character brings to his job. Never mind the words used; what do they signify? What do Gogarty's facial expressions and his body language say about his true feelings on the big issues of the day? The answers to those questions, I'd suggest, might actually engender a bit more sympathy for the Dublin West TD than he has so far received.

Conspiracy theories followed Gogarty's Dáil outburst very quickly. One suggested that it was some kind of ruse to take the attention off some of the worst elements of the budget by attracting all the media attention to a cursing TD rather than the cursed cutbacks. Another had it that Gogarty was trying to get himself thrown out of the Dáil so that he would not have to vote for social-welfare cuts. What better way to achieve that than to come over all unparliamentary of an afternoon?

It seems to me, however, that the main motivating emotions behind Gogarty's outburst were shame, disgust and anger, mainly with himself for what he has allowed his political career to become. Unlike some of his fellow Green TDs, people like John Gormley, Eamon Ryan and Mary White, who have been very happy to roll over and have their bellies tickled by Fianna Fáil in return for the occasional biscuit, Gogarty has clearly been stressed about the whole coalition deal since the government formed 30 months ago.

Even in his wilder dreams, he cannot have imagined a scenario in which his party would compromise on almost everything it stood for in order to enable the political party which ruined the country to do it even more damage. He cannot have envisaged a day in which he and his colleagues would vote to take money from social-welfare recipients and thousands of low-paid workers while allowing well-paid people to escape almost unscathed.

If the Greens were getting anything of substance in return, perhaps Gogarty might be less tortured in his contributions to the Dáil. But the party has received nothing. The so-called carbon tax in the budget isn't a proper carbon tax at all, and any Green TD who tells you that it is lying to you. Whether you call it a petrol tax, or the Gormley tax on rural Ireland, it has been designed more to raise money for the state coffers than to find resources for environmental projects or to ease fuel poverty, which is what a proper carbon tax would do. (I'm open to correction on that. If any Green person wants to give me an exact total of what will be raised by the Gormley tax, and a precise breakdown of how every cent of that money will be spent on various projects, I'll be happy to publish the details).

With his head spinning with the mass of contradictions and compromises, surrenders and soundbites, that he and his party have become, Paul Gogarty stood up to speak in the Dáil nine days ago. His response to Emmet Stagg's heckling did not come from disagreement with the Labour deputy, but from agreement, from the knowledge that, try as he might out of loyalty to his party, he did not have it in him to be sincere about the need for social-welfare cuts. And so he let fly. People have purported to be shocked by his language, but is he not to be praised for at least retaining some conscience about what he has been asked to do? Unlike the Cheshire cat grins of Gormley, Ryan and White, as they trample all over the most vulnerable, Gogarty at least wears a scowl of contempt. That, at least, is to his credit.

On a road to nowhere: Noel Dempsey takes Ireland for a ride

Noel Dempsey's decision (subsequently reversed) to kowtow to local business interests and delay the opening of the N9 Kildare bypass was a reminder that some time next year, he will officially open the country's most pointless road, the M3, the fourth motorway to run through Co Meath. The contract for the road represents a genuine Irish scandal. The Eurolink consortium, which will collect the two €1.40 tolls on the motorway, has been given a guarantee by Dempsey that it will be compensated by the taxpayer in the event of traffic on the new road falling below a minimum level. Dempsey is refusing to release details of the guarantee, a shameless show of contempt for the taxpayer. As he demonstrated with the N9 last week, Dempsey favours the interests of business over the ordinary taxpayer who has paid for the roads.

ddoyle@tribune.ie