a lighthouse positioned on the most north-westerly point, and a World War II monitoring post. The permanent population is 469, but this rises to well over 1,000 during the summer. A large proportion of the housing stock is holiday homes, with both native islanders and their descendants, as well as nonlocals. Due to the long decline in population, in 2019, the local government began trying to entice Americans and Australians to move to the island. Infrastructure and economy The island was the first offshore island in Ireland to get electricity from the Rural Electrification Scheme, run by the E.S.B., in 1957, but was amongst the last places in the country to get universally reliable piped water (in 1973–75) and an automatic phone exchange (in 1986). It went directly from a manual switchboard to an ISDN-enabled system, which had to be upgraded within weeks due to massive demand for consumer phone lines, as the previous exchange had been limited to issuing numbers to business ventures only, and only had 47 internal lines. It relies mostly on tourism for its income (fishing was the island's mainstay up to the 1980s but is no longer a significant industry), as well as the traditional Gaeltacht summer schools. In recent years, a local development co-op has encouraged the development of other industries on the island, such as a call centre and teacher training for Irish teachers. The island's many lakes provide rod fishing opportunities. A co-working facility was opened in 2019 in partnership with 3 Ireland, providing high-speed internet access which the island did not previously have. 3 have produced a major marketing campaign "The Island" based on this. The island has a purpose-built An Post post office. Despite population falling below the 500 level which An Post's 2018 review required, all island post offices have been retained. Emergency Services The island has had a based fire engine since the 1980s. A new fire station was built and supplied with a purpose-built fire engine designed for smaller roads in 2005, but has since been deemed sub-standard with a modern station required. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) station on the island is equipped with the largest class of vessel the service has, a Severn class lifeboat. There has been an RNLI presence on the island since 1883, with the station having moved from Aphort to Leabgarrow and most recently to a purpose-built station at Poolawaddy