and mcquade 2014 ). such a metric would have raised a red flag about irish external debt by the first quarter of 2004 and peaked at 44 percent in the third quarter of 2008. the irish retail banks held net external debt assets of around 16 percent at the end of 2017, such that current international balance sheet risk is low. in similar fashion, galstyan ( 2018 ) strips out the foreign assets and foreign liabilities of externally - orientated and externally - owned entities from the irish international investment position data. the outcome of this exercise is a far smaller international balance sheet, this is a transformation of the threshold for net external debt liabilities estimated by catao and milesi - ferretti ( 2014 ). which more accurately represents the external exposures of irish households and irishdomiciled entities. in line with the recommendations of the economic statistics review group ( esrg ) that was formed to address the impact of globalisation on the measured national accounts, the cso now produces supplementary national accounts estimates in the forms of adjusted gross national income ( gni * ) and an adjusted current account balance ( ca * ). the two main forces driving these adjustments are the mobility of ip assets and the ability of firms to redomicile ( that is, change headquarters ) across countries. the underlying principle is that activity taking place elsewhere should only have minimal impact on the measurement of the irish national accounts. in the case of mobile ip assets, a decision by a firm to transfer these assets from a legal entity in some other location to a legal entity resident in ireland should only matter for irish activity data if it is associated with a change in production patterns. in contrast, if these ip assets are primarily deployed elsewhere ( with the irish legal entity charging royalties to the overseas production facility ), it would be highly misleading to include the depreciation charge on the ip assets in the irish national accounts. 3 in relation to a firm that re - domiciles into ireland, this should have no impact on the allocation of the profits earned by this firm if there is no associated change in the shareholder register. however, due to a quirk in the differences in the treatment of corporate income across the direct investment and portfolio equity components of the balance of payments, re - domiciles are not neutral in the standard accounts, such that the correction introduced by the cso is required. taken together, these corrections make a big difference. the 2017 data show that gdp is 62 percent ahead of gni *

##bank and of the entire eurosystem. for me, it is crucial that the institutional architecture of monetary union is designed in such a way that monetary policymakers are freed up to concentrate on their objective of safeguarding permanently stable prices. first and foremost, this means staking out the framework conditions so that that monetary policymakers do not come under pressure to make high levels of debt sustainable, to compensate for low potential growth with an accommodative monetary policy, or to rush to the aid of banks with liquidity assistance. it would be good to see the institutional architecture evolve this year in a way that renders monetary union more stable. among others, steps towards this goal would include completing the banking union – though subject to the condition that legacy assets are not communitised as a result, that the sovereign - bank nexus is broken, and that the protection systems which function successfully, like the institutional protection scheme, remain intact. this would probably also have a positive effect on monetary policy going forward, as it would reduce the likelihood of monetary policymakers having to act as a “ crisis response unit ”. but for now, monetary policy is what it is – and it played a major part in shaping last year ’ s balance sheet. and this brings me to the third item i want to discuss : our annual accounts and the central bank profit. the accommodative monetary policy that was pursued in 2017 once again led to an expansion of our balance sheet. the assets side grew primarily as a result of the bond purchases and the targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltro ii ). under the asset purchase programmes we bought bonds with a net value of around €160 billion over the course of last year. a further €30 billion or thereabouts was added to this amount under the longer - term refinancing operations. on the liabilities side, the largest increase was recorded for deposits by credit institutions and resident and non - resident depositors. our excess liquidity totalled around €575 billion at yearend. the lengthening of the bank ’ s balance sheet also drove up its profit, which stood at €2. 0 billion for the 2017 financial year. this is roughly €1 billion more than one year before. around €100 million of our profit is attributable to the fact that pension obligations are discounted at a higher average interest rate following an amendment to the german commercial code. as in the year before,