Ulster Secretary Peter Hain will be harassed everywhere he goes in Northern Ireland if water charges are not scrapped, campaigners vowed last night.

The Government was castigated for "lies and spin" by a series of speakers over the introduction of a tap tax next April at the public meeting in Belfast City hall.

Campaigners said more than 70,000 people have already pledged not to pay the water charge, with a vast increase in signatures over the last few days.

The Government's 'public awareness campaign' was branded as "Labour spin designed to mislead the public," at the meeting which was hosted by Belfast Lord Mayor Pat McCarthy.

Campaigners said they were confident the charges would be defeated if people refused to pay when the bills first arrive in April.

Kieran Mulholland of the We Won't Pay Campaign said: "It's clear from history mass protest works. The battle is now joined and like the Poll Tax, this can be defeated if enough people refuse to pay.

"It would take the Government centuries to bring half a million people to court. With the poll tax millions of people refused to pay, but only a few ever had action taken against them.

"What has happened in England has nailed the lie that this extra money will be reinvested - water companies there are building hotels with their profits."

John Corey, general secretary of the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance, said of the planned civil disobedience campaign: "We have only taken this unprecedented step after getting legal advice that refusing to pay is not a criminal offence and water could not be turned off to people who don't pay.

"We own the Water Service and we are saying tonight it is not for sale," he told the meeting.

Yesterday, a phone poll of listeners to the Stephen Nolan show on Radio Ulster found 93% would refuse to pay water charges, a figure campaigners said has been supported by their own research.

Trade unionist and Belfast Telegraph columnist Eamonn McCann said unlike other privatisations, people had the ability to stop this one.

"If we come together on this and take the false fake tan off Peter Hain's face, it will be payback against all he has done to us over the last few years," he told the audience