Hundreds of people attended a rally to demand leadership and action on women's equality.
The No Woman Left Behind event was organised by the National Women's Council.
Crowds gathered in front of Leinster House in Dublin, where speakers from civil society, trade unions and politics addressed the crowd.
The rally highlighted a number of issues that women are facing in Ireland today, including gender based violence, housing, childcare costs, women's healthcare, and issues facing traveller women, disabled women and migrant women.
Orla O'Connor, Director of the National Women's Council said the scale of the challenges facing women are "enormous".
"The question for Government is can they meet the scale of this challenge?", she said.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Labour TD Ivana Bacik, Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall and PBP TD Bríd Smith addressed the rally on issues like leadership and healthcare.
Addressing an earlier controversy over Government politicians not being invited to speak at the event, Orla O'Connor said that political representatives accounted for four out of 18 speakers at the event.
She said the most important people at the rally are the women and womens organisations who were attending.
"This is a moment for government to listen", she said, adding that she was delighted to see some members of Government parties attending.
Ms O'Connor said women want their voices heard on issues like childcare, which she said remains "so inaffordable".
"We are here today to all for significant investment in tackling the high costs of living and crucial public services, including childcare.
"Our current system does not work for women. We have some of the highest childcare costs in Europe and some of the lowest paid childcare workers," she said.
Ms O'Connor said there needs to be more women in leadership positions in Ireland.
"We are still only 23% in the Dáil. In our boardrooms, women are just not there. And coming out of the pandemic, that's a strong issue for women. If we are not in those spaces, the decisions that are being made are having a negative impact on women's lives," she said.
A moment of silence observed for the people of Ukraine at the "No woman left behind" @NWCI rally in Dublin today @rtenews pic.twitter.com/WVcKEGsuru
— Laura Hogan (@LauraHoganTV) March 5, 2022
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Orla O'Connor said that some positive things are happening and welcomed a new national strategy on violence against women being brought forward by Justice Minister Helen McEntee.
"That will be a really positive and welcome step. We know action needs to be taken very quickly to meet the needs that are there".
She said the Minister's commitment on this issue is clear, but what women attending the rally are saying is that a whole societal change is needed when it comes to violence against women, and it needs to happen urgently.
Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said that action is badly needed to tackle violence against women.
She agreed that the new strategy is going to be very important, but said it must move quickly and be properly resourced.
Louise Bayliss, campaign coordinator with Focus Ireland, said domestic violence is a "huge pathway" into homelessness for women.
"So many people ask the question, 'why doesn't she just leave?', well where does she leave to? At the moment many people are trapped in abusive relationships because the only places that are left for them are refuges and after refuges they go into emergency services", she said.
Ms Bayliss said current figures show one third of people accessing emergency homeless services at the moment are women.
However, she said that women's experience of homelessness is often excluded because the way homeless data is collected means it does not take account women who are staying in refuges, or women who are staying on the couches or floors of family and relatives.
Ms Bayliss called for a safe pathway for women coming out of emergency accommodation.
"We want local authorities to have that guideline that women escaping abuse are a priority, at the moment they are not and we need them prioritised," she said.
The future of the new National Maternity Hospital was also addressed by speakers at the event.
The National Women's Council said that it wants the hospital - when it is relocated from Holles Street to the St Vincent's Hospital campus - to be "fully owned and controlled by the State".
Plans to advance the long-delayed new maternity hospital are still in train, following protracted disputes over the ownership of the land and control over the hospital.
A letter recently written to the Taoiseach and Minister for Health and signed by 52 current and former clinicians at the National Maternity Hospital, said concerns being raised that the new hospital will be curtailed by any religious ethos are "misleading and ill informed".
The 'No Woman Left Behind' rally outside Leinster House took place ahead of International Women's Day on Tuesday.
