From my general experience of DUB, the mornings are the peak periods (which is why T1 Flight Connections stays open only until 13:00 (very) ish). As mentioned upthread I suspect evenings will continue to be OK, but the Friday morning before Christmas won't be the best time.

If you are risk adverse then DUB isn't the place to go for a B2B, there are better options out there now - and it wasn't totally robust for the year or so we had the gate to gate option. If you are very risk adverse then at some stage it's best to go point to point. Non EU passport holders are, however, at extra risk, something dylanks pointed out some time ago.