The amendment, backed with bipartisan support, mandates new drain safety standards and allocates €4.7 million to upgrade public pools. However, opposition MPs say it doesn’t go far enough.

Italy’s Lower House approved an amendment to the government’s sports decree on Thursday, tightening safety rules at swimming pools following a series of deaths in recent months.

The most recent case involved a five-year-old boy who died on Wednesday after suddenly falling ill while at a municipal swimming pool in Monterotondo, near Rome, during a summer camp outing.

New rules on pool drains

Among its key measures, the legislation requires that pool drainage systems meet criteria designed to prevent suction, or be closed off entirely if they cannot be made safe. The rule responds directly to one of the most harrowing recent cases: an 11-year-old girl who died after being sucked into a drain at a beach-club pool on the Ligurian Riviera.

The amendment also allocates €4.7 million in funding to upgrade public swimming pools across the country.

Passed with broad support but criticised as insufficient

The pool drain safety measure passed with 244 votes in favour, securing bipartisan backing. However, opposition parties said they had supported it out of a sense of responsibility rather than conviction, arguing the legislation was too generic to deliver genuine improvements in safety.

Five Star Movement MP Gilda Sportiello was among the critics. “It is not about real safety, it’s a propaganda operation,” she said, reflecting broader opposition concerns that the amendment addresses the most visible failures — such as unsafe drains — without tackling the wider structural and regulatory gaps blamed for the recent spate of deaths at Italian pools.