Sir, - On Sunday, July 6th, while nationalist protesters were being beaten off the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, artists and buskers in our own wonderful, free-enterprise democracy were being hounded yet again off the streets of Dublin by the Garda. I know, because I was one of them: in front of stunned tourists I was pushed into a police van for displaying my pictures of Irish landscapes on a closed bank window in Grafton Street.This is the result of new by-laws drawn up with little public consultation at the behest of a few greedy business interests, even though tourist promotional material features this very street life as an attractive aspect of the ambience of certain areas.Not only is this repressive policing destroying my livelihood and that of other artists, it will diminish even further what is turning into the Euro-capital of seed and tackiness. Would the police resources being used in this exercise not be better deployed in tackling real crime? - Yours, etc.,DERMOT O'DOWDA,Blackpool,Cork.