After some politicomathematical nerdery with
stephencass, it turns out that Higgins was not handed his political victory by SF's intervention. He wins in the 4th count after trailing for some time due to (your friend and mine) transfers.
He would however, owe his victory to SF, if that 55% of voters who switched from SG in the last week or so was closer to 80% (according to the RTE recall poll).