Reading some reports it seems as if Italy has double the number of ICU beds (13/100,000 people vs 6/100,000) compared to Ireland. One problem in Italy is that 80% of the cases are in 20% of the regions - there may be availble ICU beds in Rome etc. but they are not going to transfer patients from one place to another. So once the local/regional hospitals are overloaded the problems begin.
Of about 10,000 cases in Italy the current status is
50% Hospitalized non-ICU
10% ICU
25% Home isolation
10% Recovered
5% Dead
These raw numbers don't fit with the "80% of cases are mild" viewpoint, but it's hard to draw conclusions as people in hospital could be there solely for isolation rather than treatment, though reading the reports it seems that most people only go to the hospital when really needed. More likely there are a large number of cases that have not been tested - i.e. there could well be over 30,000 cases in total.