Three children were taken into protective custody after their parents passed out drunk in a hotel reception during a holiday in the Algarve.
The children, aged one, two and six, were taken to a children's home on Friday. Their parents, thought to be from Northern Ireland, were taken to hospital after staff were unable to wake them.
The police were called shortly after the couple returned to the Aparthotel Mourabel in Vilamoura at around 10pm. A barman at the hotel, who did not want to be named, said: "The husband collapsed in the hotel reception while his wife staggered into the bar with her children and fell into a chair."
The hotel manager said: "She was struggling with the pushchair, swaying from side to side. The six-year-old boy was pushing the other buggy with the two-year-old in it.
"We put her and the children inside the bar. She was sitting on a chair and she fell asleep and never woke up.
"We tried to wake her, we tried to put some water on her face and head to wake her but she was very, very bad. She started to be sick every minute."
The couple were rushed to a health centre in nearby Loule. A request for emergency shelter was made for their children who were picked up by social services and taken to the Refugio Aboim Ascensao children's home in Faro at around midnight.
Dr Luis Villas-Boas, director of the home in Faro where the children were taken, said: "It's normal for a couple for one to drink while the other doesn't. The problem here is that they were both passed out. It was extreme neglect and abandonment."
The family had arrived at the hotel earlier in the day for a week's holiday and attended happy hour at a nearby bar, where a pint cost one euro (78p).
Villas-Boas said the incident was "very very shocking" and it was the first time he had dealt with such an incident in 22 years of working at the children's home.
"I hope somebody carries this information to the UK so these parents can at least be seen because these children are indeed at risk," he said.
"They were in severe danger and there could be a risk because it is very unlikely it was the first time for the parents to drink like that.
"If they were not in an aparthotel [a kind of hotel] and were staying by themselves in an apartment, I do not want to speculate on what could have happened to children of six, two and one whose parents were passed out."
On Saturday morning, the public attorney for Faro told the children's home to return the children to their parents.
When the couple arrived just before noon to collect them, Villas-Boas admonished them but they remained silent apart from to ask whether the media knew about what had happened.
The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family's Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby.
He said the parents had committed an "immense mistake", adding: "I wish them luck."
A spokesman for the local police in Vilamoura said: "Staff called us at 10pm as the children were crying and they could not revive the parents, who were both out cold.
"We arrived to assess the situation and called the INEM [Portugal's national medical emergency service] as the parents were unconscious, and they were taken to hospital.
"The INEM called the social services. We looked after the children until the social services arrived and they took them away."
The couple refused to comment.
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