Social Security Shuts an Unlicensed Amadora Daycare Crammed With 50 Children

Social Security inspectors have shut down an unlicensed daycare centre in Amadora, on the western edge of Greater Lisbon, that was found holding 50 children in conditions the authorities described as an "imminent risk" to their health and safety. The Instituto da Segurança Social (ISS) ordered the closure "urgently and immediately" on Wednesday, 12 August, at premises on Rua José Gomes Ferreira in the parish of Águas Livres.

Of the 50 children present, 39 were of daycare age and 11 of pre-school age, according to an ISS statement relayed by the news agency Lusa. Inspectors closed the facility on three grounds — overcrowding, insufficient staff and a lack of basic safety conditions — and painted a stark picture of what they found inside: inadequate spaces for the children to rest and be fed, and, most strikingly, rooms with no windows being used to hold them. The premises offered "no conditions compatible with childcare," an ISS official told Lusa.

"Given the gravity of the situation and the imminent risk to the health, safety and well-being of the children," the institute said, it had no option but to close the centre on the spot. The inspection that triggered the closure had itself been prompted by a referral from Amadora's municipal police.

The immediate concern after any such closure is the families left without childcare. A team from Social Security's Lisbon District Centre was sent to the site to help affected parents, giving them information on licensed alternatives elsewhere in the municipality — no small task in a country where the shortage of regulated crèche places is precisely what pushes some families toward informal, unlicensed operators in the first place.

The case is unusual in its scale but not in its nature. Between 1 January and 31 July this year, ISS carried out 106 inspections of childcare facilities nationwide and ordered the immediate, coercive closure of two daycares. The Amadora operation is one of them — a reminder that behind the reassuring statistics of licensed provision sits a shadow sector that surfaces only when an inspection, or a tip-off, brings it to light.

For the many resident and immigrant families in the Lisbon metropolitan area who struggle to secure a place in a regulated crèche — often facing long waiting lists and high private fees — the episode is a double-edged warning. It shows that the state will act, and act fast, when an unlicensed centre is discovered; but it also underlines how thin the margin can be for parents with few affordable, legal options, and how easily demand for childcare can outrun the supply of safe, licensed places.